Last Rites
by halojones
Summary: AU E/B meet under violent circumstances.Surviving that 1st meeting, they navigate a slow road toward friendship, then romance. But obstacles begin to multiply around them and soon the question arises: are these obstacles random or by design - and by whom?
1. No Rest For the Wicked

a/n: So there's all these quotes in "Twilight" that infer that with the slightest tinkering of choices Edward and Bella made, their relationship would have gone in some very different directions. I thought it would be fun to take one of these quotes each chapter and let it direct the development of the story.

a/n: Italics are what's happening between Bella and her roommate. The normal text is Bella reminiscing.

**Quote: "Did you ever think that maybe my number was up the first time, with the van, and that you've been interfering with fate?"—Bella, p. 174**

"_Hot rollers for messy waves or flat iron for straight and shiny?"_

_"Flat iron with defrizzing serum. Go large on the shiny."_

_More touchable and accessible._

_Emily nodded in approval as she plugged in the hair appliance. Thirty minutes and a perfect head of hair later, we both stared at my bare face in the mirror. The bathroom lights highlighted the dark under- eye circles and sallow complexion._

_"Glamour Girl or Au-Naturale-Doe-Eyed-Innocent?"_

_Glamour Girl would raise my beauty stock. Emily could pull off small miracles with enough black eyeliner and smokey eye shadow. But it wouldn't close the looks gap between us by any stretch. Then again, he seemed immune to standard beauty. Six months of watching him from behind a pane-glassed window storefront made that clear._

"_Au-Naturale-Doe-Eyed-Innocent, please. Extra dollop of doe eyes, for good measure." Emily gave me a thumbs-up while she put in her earbuds and started the beauty overhaul._

He'd walk past my storefront every "Tightwad Tuesday" to catch the last showing at the movie theater next door. Not that he looked like he needed to save a pretty penny. He was always perfectly coifed and manicured and dressed, in ways you didn't see men bother in this town. His ride was always the flashiest car in the parking lot: sleek and modern and classic, all at the same time. Just like him.

I'd watch him make that straight-lined trek from car to cinema and back again weekly. When you spend six hours a day serving coffee and scones to people, you figure out ways to entertain yourself. He knew how to entertain too.

It was like watching James Dean reincarnated in the flesh. And not just because he could work an honest pair of wool trousers, complete with 50's style cuffed leg bottoms. He had a fierce yet vulnerable beauty, just like the original J.D. His eyes and jaw and cheekbones were piercing and strong. But his lips and expressive eyebrows softened his face.

Those softer features drew me in; hell, they drew in any female who had the slightest pulse in her libido within a five mile radius. They caused unsuspecting women to stop, drop, and roll over to get his attention. Tall, short; athletic, curvy; buxom, hipless; blonde, redhead, brunette. Raven haired. Fair skinned, freckled, olive complexioned. They all tried to crack him, but his gaze never wavered from the direction of his car.

And those fierce features - the tense set of his jaw, his cold stare, the severe cut of his cheekbones - ensured that no one tried to get his attention for a second time once the first attempt failed.

No one, that is, except for me.

"_You like?" It was just a formality on her part. Emily knew she struck artistic gold on my face. The dark circles had been banished, my eyes "popped" out with long lashes. A touch of blush colored my cheeks, and rose - stained gloss highlighted my lips._

"_It's perfect. Touchable and accessible."_

_She raised her eyebrows. "What's with the touchable and accessible theme?"_

Wouldn't she like to know.

I watched with amusement for months as he ignored any and all attention with an air of indignation. But then my amused glances caught onto patterns and clues about the boy behind the face. When he passed by with a faint ghost of a smile hanging on his lips, I was certain he'd enjoyed the cinematic fare. When he passed by with knitted eyebrows, I imagined he found the movie sad or haunting. When he passed by with no expression at all and without another single movie patron in sight, the movie had to have been a bust. He was checking out early.

He never looked my way as he passed back and forth, and I preferred it that way. He was more entertaining to watch than to interact with. And I watched intently, wondering why a boy so young could look so world weary. Why he wasn't laughing and surrounded by adoring girls and admiring boys. Why he never looked up – or down or sideways for that matter.

The thought of him finally glancing up, only to look right through me? The way he did with every other girl? Made me welcome invisibility over apathy.

"_Sex Vixen, Girl Next Door or Sassy n'Single?" Emily was eyeing me up and down now, no doubt having a preference in mind already._

_I tried not to grimace at the options – they all sounded too contrived. Too common for him._

I forced him to look my way, that first time. My co-worker and I were Windexing down the glass wall storefront from the inside, when he roamed by on the outside an hour earlier than he should have.

Another bust movie it seemed.

But then something flittered out of his pocket and onto the ground right in front of our view. I started banging on the window to get his attention, momentarily forgetting who I was addressing. He turned around slowly before his eyes settled on me. Or through me, more like. It was like the glass window and me were made of the same, transparent material.

"You dropped something," I yelled back, pointing to the paper.

A scowl appeared on his face as he walked back to retrieve it, without any further acknowledgement of my existence. Sarah stared at me, clearly mortified by proxy at the surly reaction to my good deed.

"God, does he give good (Hot) BitchFace or what," I mock-whispered in her direction.

He froze in that second, as if there was no glass barrier between us and my words had actually reached him. A ghost of a smile dangled on his lips before he picked up the paper and strode off into the night.

_"Earth to Bella: Sexy Vixen, Girl Next Door, or -"_

"_Doe-eyed Girl Next Door, two extra sprinkles of Girl-y if you will." Em tapped a finger on her chin for a couple seconds before embarking through our shared walk-in closet._

He went back to ignoring me each Tuesday, just as he did before. I fixated on that slight smile that appeared after I had taunted him in so low a whisper, my co-worker next to me barely heard. But he had heard me. Whether he had read my lips or owned a pair of bat ears, he'd caught what I said - and he smiled.

I made James Dean smile.

Which was nothing compared to the second time he looked my way. He came gliding by the storefront just as I was walking an elderly customer out of the entrance. I was so busy exchanging pleasantries with her, his arrival escaped me. But the second I pulled the door handle back and a huge gush of cold air rushed inside, I felt it.

Felt him, more like. Heard him too, as he inhaled a violent breath. His stare was no less overwhelming.

I'd been made aware I was pretty enough throughout the years. "Noxema-clean good looks," a friend once mentioned. I'd had my share of admirers, flowers sent to my work and house. But no one had ever looked me over as he did in that moment.

Correction: he wasn't just looking at _me_. His eyes were raking over every exposed inch of my body. Some of the raking was understandable, like taking in my bare neck and collarbone. But other points of interest, like my naked wrists, commanded equal attention from him. And his eyes continued to wander even when clothing hindered further exposure. His eyes ran up from my ankles to my knees and continued upward to the very top of my skirted thighs. His eyes ran down my neck, past my décolletage, and continued its descent even when my blouse got in the way.

He wasn't undressing me with his eyes - we were past that. My body felt naked the minute he began to size it up. It was more that he was undressing my skin from my bones, his stare pierced that deeply. The elderly customer's parting words broke the trance between us. He quickly retreated towards his car, more quickly than usual. But not before gripping onto a nearby pole with such force, I wouldn't have blinked if he snapped the hard metal in two.

That stare should have scared me. Within that gaze was a promise of consuming me whole, in ways I couldn't even comprehend yet.

I waited to feel the dread that should accompany that revelation, but it never came. Maybe because if I had to be consumed, he was one hell of a way to go.

Make no mistake about it: "the way to go" was coming for me. Why not meet it halfway, and go out with a bang?

"_This is very doe-eyed and doubled down girly," Emily mumbled as she held up a ruffled white top to my shoulders._

"_Maybe," I answered with a slight shoulder shrug. She took the hint, and began to rummage through our closet for more options._

He caught my gaze every time he passed by from that night on. Every "Tightwad Tuesday" was a given sighting. But then he started cruising by randomly, long after the theater's last showing had commenced. When the store was crowded, he kept a normal pace, only staring at me briefly. When the store only entertained a patron or two, he'd meander, drinking me in with more leisure.

One night, he found the store completely empty. He stopped right in front of the door, his head nervously turning from side to side. The outlying sidewalk was a ghost town too. I could feel my head nodding slowly in approval as his hand reached for the door handle.

"Bella, should I just rinse out these containers or soak them in sanitizer?"

Sarah's loud voice broke the silence as she appeared suddenly from the back kitchen. I turned to face her for no more than a second; but that's all that was needed for him to retreat into the night without a trace.

With one exception: a note left on my car after I'd finished my shift. The fact he knew which car was mine should have concerned me, but it didn't. The script on the tattered piece of paper was beautiful and effortless looking. The content was similarly self - assured. Dinner. He invited me to dinner that Monday. Away from the ugly strip mall. Did I know the little seafood restaurant on the lakefront wharf, he asked politely? He would wait there, he explained, and hoped I joined him. 8:00 PM. No other contact information was given, but the tone was pleasant and hopeful.

Odd. But intriguing.

"_I think I picked a winner." Emily gave up on my wardrobe and had taken something out of her own collection. Deep blue, plunging neckline, soft to the touch. "It's going to look great with your jeans and heels."_

_Emily was right, of course. That's why I entrusted her with such duties. But it was missing one last accessory. I walked over to my jewelry chest and took out a necklace with a small, silver crucifix on it. I silently handed it to Emily to put on me. She nodded, her eyes welling with tears, as she latched it on behind my neck. But not before giving me a kiss on the cheek._

"_This is a more effective talisman than even that Pepper Spray your father made you put on your key chain. Maybe I won't tip off Charlie to give you a police escort tonight after all, " she half-teased. "Half "being the operative word._

My mother's crucifix. The first time I'd taken it out since that day. I chose to cling onto memories instead of momentos when it came to my mother. My best memories rested inside my heart. The worst memories, the memories of that final day, rested heavily against my chest. To the point that I felt like I was suffocating.

She took my place that day willingly. My mother would have done it again too, if given the chance. I was her only child, the center of her life. But she could have offered to save me a hundred more times and it didn't erase one fact. A fact that took me months to figure out: Death doesn't barter lives, and it can't be tricked. It had just resorted to playing Hide-And-Seek until It got bored with me.

Death accompanied me everywhere, had been my constant companion since that fateful day. It rested just outside my peripheral vision; a dark, shapeless, blind spot, present but just out of reach. For the first six months of our game, I was frozen with fear. It was waiting for me to take the slightest risk, in order to cash in my already expired life policy. So, I lived quietly. Safely. Mimicked life instead of living it. Hoped that if I was silent and careful enough, Death would move on out of sheer boredom.

It didn't.

Eventually, fear gave way to boredom. And boredom gave way to apathy. To the point that I was telling Death to fuck off and make a move already while we walked to work. Or brushed our teeth. Or poured milk into our cereal.

But then a boy with the face of an angel and the glare of a demon appeared. And the live girl within me who'd been buried for so long came barreling out. He made that part of me feel butterflies again; and shame, and insecurity. He made me giggle and sigh, and hold my breath. Half of the feelings he prompted were the shittier feelings of a being a teenaged girl. But at least I was feeling something again.

There was more there, too, behind the pretty, sullen face. More that interested the dead girl within me. The girl who was just waiting for the ball to drop so she could stop getting her hopes up. In this boy she felt an inexplicable camaraderie. He moved and walked in ways the dead girl recognized. She knew the scowl, the agitated glare, and fustrated gait. It was a demeanor that had been touched by Death too. Was Death playing Peek-A-Boo with the boy too? The same way It did with me?

There was no question I would meet him. When the alternative was calling Death a royal prick while watching basic cable all night, what was there to lose? My life, the very thing that had been taken away from me for all intents and purposes a half a year ago?

I went over all the possible scenarios in my head of what tonight could bring about. At the very best, the live girl inside could enjoy an awkward date with a boy too beautiful for his own good. At the very worst, because Death's handprints were written all over this evening, I could die. On the way to the wharf in an accident. Maybe by tripping over a rock and falling into the water unconscious.

Or did It have something more sinister for my demise?

I briefly wondered if Death wanted the boy to do its bidding on me this evening. The look he gave me as he looked over my body that one night confirmed he could be dangerous. But Death, the brutish bastard I found it to be over our companionship in the last year, didn't seem to understand what powers I could hold over a boy too. Feminine wiles, some might call it. Touchable, accessible, doe-eyed feminine wiles that even the surliest of boys could be disarmed by.

I had disarmed him once, why couldn't I pull it off once more?

It was a long shot, whether my own forms of armor could prove protective enough for tonight's developments. But as I rubbed my mother's cross and gave it a quick kiss, I was ready. Ready for nothing, or everything, or death, or even just heart burn from too much fried shrimp.

It was time to end the stale mate between my life and my death, and I was ready to make the first move.

As I headed out the front door, Emily stopped me.

"What's his name again?" I hadn't told her yet, and she knew very well I hadn't. I paused for a moment, before recovering with a casual smile.

"James. His name is James."

**xxx**

" **I can't slow down, I can't hold back, though you know I wish I could**

**You know there ain't no rest for the wicked, until we close our eyes for good."**

**-"Ain't No Rest For The Wicked," Cage the Elephant**


	2. I'll Show You My Dark Secret

**Chapter 2: I'll Show You My Dark Secret**

**a/n**: Thanks for the reviews! I appreciate it!

**a/n**: FAQ: What did Bella mean by naming her date "James?" : Bella had no contact information from the note, so she didn't know the boy's name. She lied to her roomie about the date being set up by a girl at work. So, she made up a name at the last minute when her friend inquired about a name. She used "James" because she likened him to James Dean earlier. Although, now come to think about it, James would have been a more interesting way to start!lol

**a/n**: The chapter title and quote at the end is from this chapters's song: The Toadies' "Possum Kingdom." I loved this song when I first heard it, but then by the end of the song, I was so creeped out by the lyrics! Which is why it makes for a good choice for this chapter.

quote:(270):** "I thought of a hundred different ways to lure you from the room with me, to get you alone..." **

** He looked up then at my staggered expression as I tried to aborb his bitter memories. His golden eyes scorched from under his lashes, hypnotic and deadly.**

** "You would have come," he promised.**

** I tried to speak calmly. "Without a doubt."**

**xxxx**

8:07 PM.

She was punctual. If there was one thing I'd picked up about her, she was always on time. I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply, hoping to pick up her scent in the distance.

Nothing.

The girl was like clockwork, always positioning herself close to the store window front at just the right time when I passed by every week. She bent over the same table pretending to wipe it down, whether it was littered with used coffee mugs or completely cleared. She never tried to get my attention though, keeping her gaze downward as she smiled gently. Our proximity seemed to be more the objective than actual interaction.

Odd little thing.

I shook my head, trying to banish those thoughts from my head. If it were possible, I would erase all memories of her from the last several months. The less I knew about her, the better it would turn out. Which was the opposite of how I did things _before_. Before I returned to Carlisle and Esme, their arms and hearts opened wide to welcome back their prodigal son.

Before, I took comfort in knowing everything I could about_ them_. My mind would collect all their damning thoughts. My body would follow them until their thoughts manifested into actions.

Rapists. Killers. Pedophiles.

Then I took it upon myself to be judge, jury, and executioner. I fancied myself an avenging angel, using what was damned inside me for good. Complete lies really, as if my "missions" were of my own personal choosing. As if what I was doing was heroic and not biological.

Predatory.

Preying over monsters hardly more human than myself allowed me to satiate my thirst. But it wasn't just the blood that I was after. It was the whole _process_. Following them, waiting for just the right time to make my move. The confrontation and the subsequent struggle. Hearing their thoughts cry out and the verbal pleas that followed. Feeling the frantic pushing and kicking and squirming against me. The shocked gasps and the tensing as I sunk into their flesh. And their life force draining, submitting, as I sucked them dry. The blood satiated my appetite, but the chase satiated something deep and primal inside me too. You couldn't feel full from one without the other.

Which is what made Carlisle's ways so hard to adhere to. Even after so many years of observance, the hunger had never died down within me. Not one bit. I'd simply learned how to live alongside the pain over the years.

I never had to parcel out my motivations for what made me hunt and consume _before_. Before I could hide behind self-righteous hero complexes with my targets. But she was different - she was innocent. Just a young girl who had the misfortune of me picking up her blood scent.

8:09 PM.

I'd noticed her before, barely. Her little routine of lingering near the store window as I passed caught my attention, the way you notice a potted plant in your field of vision. But then I happened a glance at that slight smile on her face, and the odd silence that followed when my mind reached out to find the source of that smile. It grabbed my attention, but only momentarily. By the time I left the parking lot, my mind had wandered elsewhere.

One night, she made sure I wouldn't forget so easily. She lingered past my walk to the car, beyond my drive home, and deep into the night. I'd passed her store front as usual, my eyes staring straight ahead, even though a quick side glance proved she wasn't in her usual spot. She banged on the glass, yelling in my direction. I turned around, imagining she was trying to impress her co-worker by flirting with me.

_Look back at me_, I silently dared. Look into my eyes, and let's see how long you keep up the bold posturing. Humans were drawn in by my appearance; but instinctively, they always avoided eye contact. Their reasoning was they were too bashful to flirt outright with me. The truth was their instincts forbade them to look too closely underneath my shiny exterior. I dared her to stare right back at me this once, knowing even a quick glimpse would give her a pause to confront me so casually again.

But then she met my gaze and kept it, longer than any other human had without coming undone. And then that slight smile reappeared, along with a wry joke at my expense to her friend. The girl looked death straight in the face, and laughed. As I walked away, I couldn't help but smile myself at the absurdity of it all.

8:11 PM.

I began to steal glances her way from then on, speculating about the odd girl with the odd smile and the odd sense of fearlessness. The more glances I stole her way, the more the puzzle began to come together. I recognized her gait, which was too world weary for one so young. Her sloped shoulders, the hard line of her eyebrows on an otherwise child-like face. How little she reacted to the hot coffee that she spilled on herself accidentally, or when she tripped hard over nothing in particular. Or when she stared back at me. She'd come face to face with death before. It was the only conclusion I could come up with for her utter lack of fear. Once you've confronted death, everything else seems insignificant and small in comparison.

My mind wandered often, wondering how she'd stared down mortality and lived to tell the tale through even the faintest of gestures. The fact I picked up nothing but silence when my mind reached out to hers only fueled my curiousity. Had she been lost during surgery before being resuscitated? Had she watched another's life pass into death right before her eyes? Was it first hand knowledge, or knowledge by witness?

It was that very question I was pondering when the door to her store flew open one night; I stood face to face with her, no glass between us for once. And all the sympathetic thoughts about her were replaced in an instant with violent images. Her body writhing below me as I latched on murderously to her neck. My eyes rolling back, enraptured, as her blood pulsed in spurts down my throat. My jaw still moving, attempting to get more, even after her eyes were glassy and lifeless and I knew she was sucked dry.

Her blood scent reached out and grabbed a hold of me, drawing me in like no other had. For a split second, my mind began to look over the crowded room, wondering if I could take them all quickly, bleed her out, and still escape before anyone else noticed. I gripped onto a nearby pole for dear life until I was strong enough to will myself to my car.

But it was too late.

I began to fall back into my old routine - the routine I promised Carlisle to forsake when I returned to him. It started out simply enough. Watching her intently in her shop. The parking lot. But then observing her at her work led to observing her at home. I hoped, more than I'd ever hoped before, that she'd have some dark secret to uncover. A secret that exposed her as an undercover ax murderer. Or a child porn peddler. Anything deviant enough to justify my deviance. Instead, I found a quiet girl living a quiet life, outside of work and school. No dates, no boyfriends, no friends really. A father who came by occasionally, scolding her for leaving the door unlocked, all the while mussing up her hair playfully.

As if a locked door could save her now.

With the exception of her father, she had few connections. She was a girl who the world would not miss. That should have been some small relief - her disappearance wouldn't draw unwanted scrutiny towards me and my family. But sitting against her window pane late at night, listening to her quiet cries in her sleep, cries that woke her up in tears? That reality only uncovered a dull pain from within that I couldn't even locate, let alone name.

I knew all too well about young boys who the world would not miss if someone took them away from all that they knew. Vanishing without a trace, without anyone even questioning, was no comfort to me.

8:11 PM

Jasper picked up on my agitation tonight, but didn't say a word. Alice told me she loved me, and the words carried a hint of expectation in them. Then her thoughts rang out so loudly, they made me take a step back:

_Remember who you are. Not what you are. Who you are._

She'd seen something, but wasn't going to say more until I made my choice.

8:13 PM.

I watched the second hand on my watch make a quick rotation, vowing to stay only two more minutes before retreating. If she were coming, she wouldn't be this late. I threw my head back and inhaled one last time:

Grease vapor from the restaurant lingered near me. A rotten odor was coming from the nearby water. Pine needles and humidity almost heavy enough to taste mixed together in the air. And...freeshia. Definitely freeshia, masked over by some cheaper cologne that she had poured over herself. Lime and coconut I was betting, a fragrance I'd seen a girl spray on in school once before. My nose crinkled in repulsion to the watering down of her natural scent.

I closed my eyes, the way a young child would when trying to hide from their mother while playing Hide and Go Seek. Except in my case, it wasn't a game. I was trying to hide from myself; my old mother too wherever she was, from what I was about to reclaim and surrender to after all these years.

8:14 PM and 47 seconds.

Fate could be cruel. If she had caught one more red light on the way down here, she would have escaped all this. And yet my whole body shook with anticipation for the consequences of her bad luck.

I could hear her teetering footsteps now as they rushed down the stairs quickly. Too quickly, since it sounded like she was wearing heels. I shook my head, remembering how I'd seen her trip over her own feet in sneakers on flat ground one night. Why would she risk running down stairs while wearing heels?

And why was I even asking that question?

Her steps halted at the bottom of the stairwell, most likely when she noticed that the restaurant was closed on the far end of the deserted wharf. It was closed on Mondays, as were the rest of the shops. But I already knew about their seasonal hours. Depended on them actually, for tonight. I walked out of the shadows to ease her confusion.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize they'd be closed tonight."

I smiled apologetically while walking towards her. She sized me up with great care, but no other signs of distress were evident. Her mind was still silent to me, her heartbeat regular, her hands steady, even if her feet weren't in the heels.

I wanted to smile watching one of her ankles tremble slightly, but thought it was inappropriate, given the circumstances.

"I'm Edward," I offered, taking her hand. "And I was beginning to worry you weren't going to show."

We talked for a few minutes. She asked me for my full name. I gave it to her. I asked her if she would be willing to drive with me to another restaurant a couple miles away from her. She looked at me for a moment before nodding slowly.

The determination in her eyes alarmed me; even as I grabbed her by the waist and covered her mouth while dragging her into the nearby storehouse.

I waited for her to scream into my hand. She never did.

I waited for her to kick and squirm and push and strike back. She never did.

I waited for her to cry, for her heart to beat like it was about to explode. She never did. It never did.

I waited for her to do anything, except relaxing her body into a dead weight as her eyes gazed up at me without so much as a blink. Eyes that gazed past my exterior and deep into my soul, and saw nothing but cowardice.

I lowered us to the ground, placed her in my lap, and was able to begin. I vowed to myself to drain her quickly, unlike the others. I went over the plan countless times to make sure I didn't mess it up. It would be quick and swift and she would be dead before she even realized what was happening to her. But I sat there frozen, the small girl cradled and imprisoned in my arms, unable to move as she watched me. Part of the thirst and the hunger came from the struggle, and she was giving me nothing to work with. Or maybe she was giving me too much to work with, too much to think about.

"Close your eyes, " I growled, trying to regain the upper hand.

"No," she yelled back, all rage and indignation. Her heart was beating steadily against me now, and her scent was causing the venom to pool in my mouth. Yet that damn cologne was making my insides churn. Or was it her gaze...

"You look straight into my eyes if you're going to do this," she taunted, shaking me out of my thoughts.

I lowered my head, mumbling to myself, praying to nothing and no one in particular to tell me what to do. When I looked up, her eyes were conspiring against me.

"I'll close my eyes," she answered, her voice softer now. "But only if you give me my last rites."

My head tilted reflexively, as foggy memories came into my mind's eye. Back to the time of my old mother. Her taking me to church. Bowing, kneeling, praying. The holy water font that stood near the entrance, radiating mysterious power.

"You want to take communion?" I asked in confusion.

"No, my last rites. You owe me that if you are going to take this from me." She emphasized "this" with a sudden burst of intensity. Her heartrate began to quicken." Let me speak to my father. I need to call him, I need to tell him I love him."

Her voice was raw, but she still stuck that chin up defiantly.

I couldn't help it, I laughed at the absurdity of this exchange. She took it wrong, was ready to lash out verbally at me, when I stopped her.

"Last rites are not last _rights._ It's not a last request that's suppossed to be honored. It's about taking communion.."

My voice trailed off as her tear-filled eyes looked up at me. Now was not the time to be charmed by her quaint understanding of religious terms.

"I just want to hear him one last time..." She began to blink profusely, attempting to stop the tears from falling. It only served to blow more of her blood scent in my direction, as if I had fire puncturing through my throat. I stopped breathing in an attempt to keep my head clear. No, I couldn't grant her wish. And yet to deny her her last anything, be it rites or rights, was wrong on every level.

"I can't," I finally let out with fake conviction. "Close your eyes, it will go faster." It was all I could offer her as I burrowed my mouth into her neck. I meant to strike quickly, but something within let me indulge in the new sensations for a moment. Her silky, fragrant hair tentacled around my neck. Her soft skin flushing against me, warm and supple; not just against my teeth, but my cheek and nose as well. And the scent...

I opened my mouth on contact, tasting her with my tongue. Her outer skin layer tasted as delicious as her aroma....

"Please, no..." She cried out, her body stiffening with the sensation of my tongue. "Please don't. Kill me, get it over with. But please don't..."

My head shot backwards to gauge the sudden change in demeanor. Her voice went from indignant to pleading within the space of a couple seconds. Her breathing shallowed while she crossed her arms over her breasts. It finally struck me: she thought I was going to rape her first.

I shook my head firmly so she understood. "I won't. I'm not."

She didn't believe me. Her arms wrapped around her chest tighter.

"Look into my eyes. Look into them, and you'll understand that I won't."

It was the second time I'd beckoned her to do so. The first time was to warn her. This time was to give her some small consolation of what I was capable - and incapable - of.

She stared in deep concentration for a long pause, not understanding what I was trying to reveal. But then she gasped while her eyes widened in recognition of my true nature. She nodded with a pained expression, as a teardrop finally spilled over.

"You're not.... a boy."

She was being polite. I nodded, knowing her meaning. My eyes revealed my inhumanity, an animalistic quality that she may have not identified exactly, but understood. It occurred to me how strangely civil we'd both been to eachother for the most part, given the situation.

Her shoulders shook as the tears began to fall. Her silent mind was driving me mad. Was she crying because I was a monster? Because she knew there was not way out now, given what I was?

Laughter ripped through her tears: "I straighened my hair for you. I changed my top twice for you. And refreshed my lipgloss before I got out of the car." She sounded hysterical now." All for you. And this whole time, you were looking at me like a drumstick."

I sat motionless, watching her laughter die out. All that remained were soft whimpers.

"I'm like a mouse to you, aren't I? Or a chicken....."

Her crossed arms implied shame and self consciousness now, and my mind reeled. Why hadn't I complimented her on how pretty the blue hue of her top sat against her pale skin when I greeted her at least?

And why did that matter in the scheme of things?

Her body curved on my lap, broken and humbled before me, and I mentally raced. I raced past her face and the wharf and backwards through time. The memory was dull and fuzzy and all too human, but the image was clear enough to make out the scene. I saw myself as a child with a young girl crying before me on the ground. Was she a cousin? Or a neighbor? Someone I had loved or no one in particular? Her knee was bleeding, with dirt and leaves sticking to it. She had fallen and was looking at me as if I was the only one who could help her. I took her hand gently and stood her up straight before inspecting the wound---

"Jesus." The crumpled girl on my lap brought me back to the present.

The words started out bitter and angry.

"Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Chhhhrist!"

But the loud cursings of that word eventually gave way to pleas. The last repetition parted from her lips like a prayer:

"Jesus. Please, Jesus."

Her upper body leaned into my chest slightly; as if she was seeking comfort from me, of all people.

Jesus.

My heart sank, knowing I couldn't begin to offer her what she was seeking. And it sank even further knowing I was entertaining such concerns while still resolute with my plan.

My mind's eye drifted back to that distant human memory, of helping the young child to her feet after her spill. Of checking for other cuts and bruises.

How could I check for wounds that hadn't been applied yet, and would be administered by my own hand? My own mouth?

The girl nuzzled slightly closer into me as her cries softened. Like she was finding solace in some way from me. The gesture angered me, reminded me that her utter lack of fearlessness that I admired earlier was apallling to me now. Why wasn't she fighting harder? Why wasn't I fighting harder?

My hand touched her cheek gently, the way I imagined a mother would for her crying child. Her face only winced in response, making my hand retreat just as quickly as I extended it. As if my cold, hard skin could comfort her. My hands reached out again for her purse this time. I couldn't comfort her back physically, I didn't have that right.

But someone else could. Her eyes widened in shock as I handed her her cellphone.

"You only have thirty seconds," I barked out. "Thirty seconds and no more."

When her eyes softened toward me, I shot her back a glare that made her shudder. Yet behind the cold sneer, I silently acknowledged to myself that this girl - this small, awkward, insignificant girl - could cost me everything.

**xxxxx**

**Do you wanna die?  
I promise you  
I will treat you well  
My sweet angel  
So help me, Jesus**

**-Toadies**


	3. I Lost Myself

**Chapter 3: I Lost Myself**

**a/n**: Thanks for the reviews, you're all lovely.

**a/n**: Song for this chapter that's posted on my link: Radiohead's "Karma Police."

**a/n**: Quote, p. 93: "**You're dangerous?**" I guessed, my pulse quickening, as I intuitively realized the truth of my own words. He was dangerous. he'd been trying to tell me all along. He just looked at me, eyes full of some emotion I couldn't comprehend. "**But not bad**," I whispered, shaking my head. "**No, I don't believe that you're bad**."

**xxx**

25 seconds.

"Can't I call my daddy just to say hi?" My laugh came out too breathless. It was only adding to his suspicions.

"Since when do you call me _daddy_," he responded slowly. "Bells, is something wrong?"

"No."

Yes.

I thought for a moment he was Death himself. Or Satan. Or Fate. One of those big marquee names that conjured up fear and awe and humility from mere mortals. There was such a fierce, godlike beauty to him as he hovered above me. I couldn't stop staring at him, even though my instincts were screaming to look away - or bow down.

But he wasn't, just someone who freelanced for Death it turned out.

When he forced me to look into his eyes, everything became clear. They were the eyes of a killer, and an unrepentent one at that. But he was no Jeffrrey Dahmer, whose windows to the soul revealed something missing and defective. These eyes were matter-of-fact and clear sighted, simply a testament to his true nature. A nature that was timeless and alien to me, making my mind fold into itself before I could dig any deeper. Thoughts of how I would fit into his "natural state of things" were too frightening to entertain. Whatever it included, it was formidable enough to not involve Charlie. His rifle and bullet-proof vest were no match for him.

As I dialed Charlie, my stare drifted back to his face. That perfect skin I meditated on before now came into sharper focus. It was too flawless. No freckles - or lines or pimples or scars for that matter. Completely poreless too, and as hard and impenetrable as iced sheet metal.

All the perfection that had drawn me in earlier struck me as ghoulish now.

"And since when do I call you Daddy? When I realized there were countless Charlies in the world, but only one Dad for me."

He sighed as if he didn't believe a word of it, but I could tell he was tickled pink. It had bothered him when I started calling him "Charlie" by the time I was twelve. He said it was disrespectful; in retrospect, I wondered if it marked Renee's liberal influence taking precedence over his. It was late in coming, but I was going to shove that term into the conversation as much as possible for our last couple of seconds together.

"What's so funny, Dad?"

He tried to stifle his quiet chuckles on the other end. "Nothing. Do you need money or something? Are you okay?"

A genuine laugh rang out from my end now at my father's perceptive ways. He spent all day conning the truth out of law breakers, both great and small, and knew all the ins and outs of deception detection. I was sure my voice and rhetoric were raising all sorts of red flags. But isn't that what I loved most about Charlie? He could smell a ruse from a mile away, especially when it came to me and my safety.

"I'm fine, Dad. I was just looking at that picture of us on the corkboard of my wall-"

"-the one of us by the Thermometer?"

20 seconds left.

"Yes, the very one."

Charlie's idea of a vacations were monotonous roadtrips where "are we there yet?" tickertaped through my head for hours on end. And once we were there, we ended up visiting obscure tourist traps, never the attractions the area was famous for in the first place. I made it all the way to Anaheim one year, and what were the highlights of _that_ trip? Visiting a berry farm amusement park that was the low rent version of Disneyland, and taking a picture by... the largest standing thermometer in the Western Hemisphere. At the age of thirteen, that road trip pissed me off me to no end. Now, it distilled everything I loved about Charlie and Charlie _with_ me into one perfect recollection.

"I just wanted to call and tell you, some of my favorite memories of you are from that trip."

_I love you._

"That I take them with me wherever I go."

_I miss you already._

I knew I couldn't say anymore - the silence on the other end was deafening. My mind's eye imagined him putting an All Points Bulletin out for me right this very second, because he could tell something was wrong.

10 seconds.

A snicker broke through the silence at last. It seemed that Charlie had put his suspicions aside so he could just enjoy the moment of a doting daughter. "Wow, Bella, do you have a loan shark out for you? You've been gambling up a storm and owe enough to put a lean my house? To what do I owe all this buttering up to?"

His words pained me, even though they were meant in jest. Apparently calling my father just to say "hi" was right up there with other phenomena like pigs flying and hell freezing over.

"Nothing, really. I guess I'm just getting old and senile and sentimental."

Times up.

I cut the phonecall short , afraid my captor would do something if I didn't get off in time. Charlie thanked me for the call, and told me he was here anytime if I had any other "senior" moments to share. Which made the tears rush out even faster. It took less than a minute of my time to give him a ring, and it had made him so happy. Yet I rarely ever did just that.

Shitty daughter.

He watched me intently as I put my phone away and turned my attention back towards him. More details caught my eye now. The overly chiseled cheekbones. A face too symmetrical. Eyes that looked like they were peering out the slits of a Halloween mask. It made my stomach churn.

He....It made no attempt to act or move, just stared at me with an expression I couldn't read. I hated how he cradle held me on his lap, it was too personal for what was about to come.

"Please, just get it over with."

He answered by applying gentle pressure onto my forehead. My head fell backwards, exposing my neck to him once again. His eyes latched onto the site with such a fixated stare, I had to shut my eyes. It was too grotesque to witness.

His finger tapped along the side of my neck until it pressed onto a pulsing blood vessel - the way a nurse taps your blood vessel out before drawing blood from your arm.

Drawing blood......

My mind jumped out of my body as I felt his finger caress the length of the vein, up and down and back again. It jumped backwards to when I was getting dressed for tonight. How I wondered if Death had a grand demise in store for me after my lack of cooperation the first time around. How cruelly comical would it be to draw my life out slowly through my veins? The very girl whose intolerance for blood and needles were so great, she passed out her junior year in biology when her lab partner pricked his skin too closely to her?

My eyes slammed open, concetrating on his teeth. Too straight, too white, as expected. But no sharp fangs protruding out either. Just regularly formed teeth that cut straight across like mine; except, I watched as he readjusted his jaw, his upper and lower teeth sliding across the tops of one another. The resulting sound was piercing, like two sharpened swords clashing, metal against metal.

I stopped breathing as all the clues came together. He was going to draw blood, from my neck. But not like I'd seen in the movies, where Dracula left two small holes on the victim's neck. No; all of his teeth would be used, and they would gnaw and gnash until they withdrew what they needed from me.

Total carnage.

The adrenaline shot through me now, my limbs flailing spastically while I tried in vain to get out of his hold.

"No, please don't. Please don't do this."

I hoped to see that spark of concern in his eyes. The same concern that allowed me to call my father just minutes earlier. But there was none; if anything, the more I struggled, the more his eyes awoke with excitement.

"Close your eyes. Close your eyes, and I'll be quick," he said in the calmest of voices, his hands effortlessly keeping me in place. His head descended once again to my neck while I began scream and curse frantically. His mouth opened against my skin, when I heard it.

Metal against metal. Or more specifically, his teeth clashing against the metal chain that held my mother's crucifix. He lifted his head up slightly, mumbling in a fustrated tone. And just like that, he grabbed a hold of my mother's choker and ripped it off my neck.

I could hear in apalled silence as it hit and bounced off the floor once before coming to a stop.

"That was my mother's," I whispered in a tone so spiteful, I surprised myself. "That's my mother's necklace."

He glanced over at the choker quickly in confusion. "I WANT my mother's necklace. I WANT my mother's"--a quick gulp of air broke up the sentence as my tears continued to fall down onto my face.

"I WANT my mother...." My words wailed outward and upwards with such force, I imagined it shooting past the roof and into the night sky, searching frantically for their recipient. His grip loosened while he stared at me in silence. The frenzy he'd whipped himself into just moments earlier dimmed once more, and a pained expression flooded over his face.

He was faltering.

A pattern was emerging with the Dr. Jekyll before me. The Dr. Jekyll side was polite, responsive to me and my plight - even if the plight came from his own hand. He had tried, in his own feeble way, to comfort me. First, with caressing my cheek, and then letting me call my father.

But there was the Mr. Hyde side that was dictating the final outcome. There was no reasoning with him, because you can't reason with an animal. His face literally transformed when this side took over. The eyes, the set of his face, the way his mouth opened and closed slightly staring at me. He couldn't hear anything or see anything or see _me - _not as anything more important than a drumstick anyways.

Countless memories of watching "Animal Planet" nature shows with Charlie flashed through my head in that second. Especially the ones about shark and bear and lion attacks. How the basic rule was to not agitate their defensive or hunting reflexes with sudden movements. My body instantly stilled.

I had to appeal to both his sides if I was going to make that faltering work for me. Like some weird fusion of Oprah and Jeff Corwin.

Fuck.

In an inhumanly fast movement, he leaned us forward and then brought us back to our original position on the floor. The next thing I knew, he was placing the retrieved necklace around my neck with one hand while still cradling my body with the other arm.

"But it's broken, the chain's broken," I blurted out before I had time to edit. Not very Orpah- ish.

His head leaned in, and Animal Planet show tips randomly yelled out to me: _"__Cover your neck and fall into the fetal position if the bear approaches you_." I tucked in my chin, lessening the neck exposure. But it was in vain, at least in that moment.

"I'll unbreak it," he said softly as he put the two ends of the chain into his mouth and bit down. I could hear the crunching of the links as he melded them together with sheer force. He then backed off, his eyes still apologetic. I forced myself to nod and whisper thank you.

So polite, the both of us, for a murder in progress.

"Why didn't you call your mother," he inquired in a low voice.

"She died at the end of last year." I had his full attention now. It seemed almost blasphemous to use my mother's memory in such a manipulative way, but I knew she'd approve. I fluttered my eyes more exaggeratedly, raising a hand to rub the crucifix and rubbing with affection. The boy was taking it all in: my face, my shaking hands, the crucifix. I had to keep him right where he was, as he began to falter more.

"Her name was Renee." Names. Names were important. They helped to personalize. Humanize.

He made no attempt to shut me up. Animal Planet weighed in on the matter: "_If you see a bear, talk to it firmly yet calmly."_

"She was beautiful and headstrong and highly impractical. And the world's worst cook..." I stopped short with that. Talking about food was probably not the best place to go. " And she's my best friend. Was...my best friend."

He looked past me now, somewhere in the distance past this small storehouse, his body slightly rocking the both of us now: "Do you miss her?"

I had to answer this carefully. An unequivocal yes could make him feel like he was doing me a favor to kill me. I had to temper the response. "I miss her very much. But I get up everyday and try to live for both of us now." He nodded back in silence.

"Do you have a mother?"

A hint of anger gleamed through his eye. "Of course I have a mother," he answered defensively.

I tried to do damage control: "Do you miss her?"

"Who said she was missing?"

"You're always by yourself when I see you. You seem....all alone."

"I have a family. More of family than you have." His voice was indignant, his shoulders straightening. I meant it to be kind, but he took it as pity. No one wants to be pitied by their dinner. It was useless, I realized. I was kidding myself to think I could reach him in some way. I resented that his words hurt me as much as they did too, in part because maybe he was right. Save it for my father and a few friends, my death would simply end up a blurb in the obit section of the newspaper and the world would move on as before. Did he have to remind me of that in such a cruel way?

Monster.

I untucked my chin and exposed my neck again. I closed my eyes as he had directed before and put my hand back on my crucifix. No more strategizing, no more chess games. I was going to say my peace and accept the consequences: "I may not mean much to a lot of people, but I mean something to my dad. And my mom; she gave up her life to save mine, that's how much she loved me. And I thank God she isn't here to realize she sacrificed everything, just so you could come along a few months later and destroy everything she tried to preserve."

He stayed quiet, long enough for me to think he was getting ready to finish this. I tried to focus on Charlie's voice, and thermostats, and Boysenberry jam laddled on top of funnel cakes that were sold inside second rate amusement parks...

My reminiscing was interrupted by a nudge to the shoulder. "Did you see her save your life?"

I opened up my eyes in confusion with his question, and the a soft tone he delivered it in. His mood changed so violently from one extreme to another, it was making my head spin.

"Did you see her pass? When she saved your life?"

"Why would you ask me that?" I wasn't sure if he was being kind or cruel, he went back and forth between the two without a second's notice.

"Because you're different," he said quietly. "You're very brave for a young girl. Like you've seen more than you should have already."

If I wasn't so terrified, I would have laughed. I was pretty sure our "date" would fall under such a cateogory.

"Did you," he prompted.

I didn't tell him the normal version I told everyone else. The sanitized retelling that told of all the good things my mother had done that day for me - minus what it cost her in detail. But for some reason, I had a feeling he could handle it. Like the fact he was a murderer.

I told him how it started out like any other day in winter here - rainy and wet with some hail. Those things never matter to a teenager though, not when there are a brand new pair of boots to be had at the mall just one town over. My mother was dragged along like she always was, just like I was dragged along when she had a similar mission. Emily called us co-dependent, I preferred the term co-conspiring.

Renee was teasing me about who I had in mind when I bought the boots when it happened. A loud, inhuman shrieking. My mother's dainty hands transformed into something much more powerful; pushing me with such force, I flew forward several yards. And Mom - crumpled and broken on the ground after the van had had its way with her. I told him of the blood and the smell of death and all the screaming and yelling going on around us. Of my mother not dying right away, and all I could do was to lie down beside her and kiss her nose until she passed. Of the glassy, faraway eyes that didn't see me, but the slight smile on her face that said everything: She had saved me in time.

"She didn't save me afterall though, just put off the inevitable by a couple months."

He gently picked me up, then sat me down beside him with a sigh. "My mother saved me too. At least she thought she was saving me."

The boy wouldn't elaborate much, he only spoke in general terms. Of his mother dying, but not before securing that her son lived on. How her wish was granted, but with unforeseen costs and consequences. He didn't spell it out exactly, but it was implied. He was once like me, a normal boy living a normal life with a mother who loved him. And then something or someone took all that away. It turned him into something he was ashamed of; something he fought against, even if it was a losing battle.

His world weary voice shook me out of my thoughts:"A mother's love is so great, she'll make deals with the devil if she has to."

"Or in my mom's case, will tell the devil to fuck off," I added. Just like that one night months ago, I made him smile once again.

We stared at eachother for a long moment, and I knew he had made his decision not to kill me. He conveyed with his eyes what he couldn't say out loud: I'm sorry I am what I am.

I should have felt clever for outsmarting him. But it felt like a hollow victory over the beautiful boy who hid such a terrible secret.

His shoulders were drooped now, and he cast his head downward so that all eye contact was inhibited.

"If I let you walk out right now, and you get in your car and drive back home, you will not mention a word of this to Emily. Or your father, Charlie. Do you understand?"

He put me on warning: he knew who I was, where I lived, and who I loved. I told him I understood.

He was holding his hands over his face now, and I didn't think before I acted. My hand reached out to his hands. He jumped as if I'd burned him, and jerked away from my touch.

"What is wrong with you?" His face was full of exasperation and anger as he stared at me again. "Run away now, run away before I change my mind. It wouldn't take much."

Something inside me called bullshit on his threat. He didn't seem tempted so much as ashamed. Maybe he didn't like being pitied. Or maybe he didn't want me to touch his cold, lifeless skin again, a reminder of what he was.

He was a monster, there was no doubt about that. He had put me through hell for the last couple hours. But he was a monster with a memory of a time when he wasn't. With the consciousness that all that his nature dictates is wrong. That seemed like the worst hell of all, to be trapped as yourself inside a nature that overpowers you.

I kept his gaze as I slowly extended my hand again, this time to his hair. The only part of him that seemed human, vulnerable.

Maybe my victory tonight wasn't over him. Maybe we shared the victory over powers that were greater of us. Powers that lined us up like pawns to meet as predator and prey, but didn't realize we might see past our assigned roles and approved scripts.

"Your hair is soft and warm." It was the only way to let him know I saw him without actually saying it. I saw him, not just the monstrous side, but the side that was letting me go too.

He didn't answer me back - just leaned his cheek into my hand and closed his eyes.

**xxx**

"And for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself"

-** Radiohead, "Karma Police"**


	4. I Don't Belong Here

**Chapter 4: I Don't Belong Here.**

**a/n:** Thank you for all the reviews, lovelies! I love them all. And props to all you lovelies who stood up in Knott's Berry Farm's honor! That made me smile! Forgive Bella, for she knows not what she says!lol

**a/n:** **Italiacs are thoughts inside people's heads that Edward can hear.**

**a/n:** I'm sorta basing Edward in part from how he's described in Midnight Sun, where his vampire impulses and his issues with being a vampire are much more prevalent since it's from his pov.

**a/n**: I know this song is a cliche at this point, that Thom won't even deign to sing it in concert anymore, but it is the ultimate anthem for teenaged yearning and low self esteem. lol The title and lyrical quotes come from "Creep" by Radiohead.

**a/n:** _**Quote, p.232-233**__: **"It's Twilight," Edward murmured....."It's the safest time of day for us....The easiest time. But also the saddest, in a way...the end of another day, the return of night. Darkness is so pre**_**dictable, don't you think?" He smiled wistfully.**

**xxxx**

"You're Just Like An Angel, Your Skin Makes Me Cry."--"Creep"

"Which James Dean double feature are they showing downtown that has you rushing off like this? You own all his movies already." Alice's tone was light and teasing - in stark contrast to what was racing through her mind.

_Please, Edward. Don't go. _

"I _have_ to go." Even from across the room, Esme picked up on the loaded tone of our conversation. Her glances volleyed back and forth between us.

Alice followed me out, blocking the front door with her small frame, her eyes pleading with mine.

_You don't have to._

She worried every time I went out lately. But tonight? Tonight was critical. She was telling me in so many words. Alice's attention moved past me and over my shoulder.

_Carlisle's watching us._

She plastered on a forced smile. Secrets were almost impossible to keep in our family between Jasper, Alice, and me. But Alice and I were known on occasion to hide a thing or two. Jasper's near-relapses had been kept hidden from the rest of the family. And now this.

"You better get going. But remember, a double dose of James Dean isn't exactly hot soup for the soul. Why couldn't J.D. make a beach blanket bingo romantic comedy to even out all his teen angst?"

_Be careful, Edward._

"Because J.D. was too busy speeding down a highway he wouldn't come back from."

Alice wasn't amused by my careless retort. But Alice wasn't amused by much these days when it came to me.

"I'll be home soon."

_No you won't._

Of course I wouldn't.

The family was used to my night prowls. Days were easier as a unit. We all had roles to play, places to be, people to be with. I had siblings in the truest sense then. We moved as a united front through school halls, each our brother's keeper. Emmett watched over all of us. I watched over Jasper, while Alice watched over me. Rosalie? She watched over herself. She was the most difficult for me to think of as a sibling, yet wasn't that the point of family in the first place? That you don't necessarily pick family, so much as accept them?

But the reality was that Carlisle did pick our family in many ways. Esme for his companion. Rosalie for mine. And then Emmett for Rosalie when it became clear that while Carlisle was an excellent matchmaker for himself, he was rather talentless at setting me up. Or maybe I was just talentless at being set up, as Emmett suggested. The disaster he had christianed "Edward's Frigid Alaskan Winter Vacation" only seemed to bring home this possibility. Others made it look so easy; like Alice and Jasper, who came as a two-for-one special.

With the arrival of night, what was once a united front during the daytime shifted into something else. Something tailormade for groupings of two, in a family unit of seven. Night prowls for one trumped the alternative: being humored by couples whose inner thoughts betrayed guilt for wanting to be alone. It was only natural; there was a reason most of our kind moved in pairs or small groups.

Just as it was natural for me to go out on my own in the evening. Sometimes I drove past city and state lines in a blur; other times, I would take backroad paths by foot, deep into the wilderness. There was no destination, other than than getting away from the thoughts and sounds and exchanges of lovers.

Many nights, picture shows were viable option. There was something about sitting alone with others in a dark room, watching people live and laugh and cry and love onscreen. It was something I did almost everyday, watching but not participating. That others were watching along with me for once was a vague comfort.

But the delicate balance my family had set up changed in the span of one night.

From the moment I freed her, caution was thrown out the window on both our sides. I yelled for her to leave, but she didn't budge. The girl simply closed the distance and touched me. Her "thank you," a show of pity. I wanted to hate her for it. But my body reacted first, leaning into the warmth that she offered. I waited for her heartrate to increase, for her instincts to remind her she was no better than that fool who put his head into the mouth of a tiger at the circus. But she never reacted, only cupped my cold face more firmly. I indulged in the warmth for a stretch of time that could have been mere seconds, or hours. Time was lost on me.

She broke the contact first, the absence of her soft skin jolting me back to the present. I opened my eyes to find hers, cautious and thoughtful.

"Go."

She stood up and walked backwards toward the door slowly, never breaking our stare. When she hit the door, she carefully reached behind her for the doorknob, opened it up, and then disappeared into the night.

My mind cleared in her absence. I had shown her my face, given her my real name. She knew my car and voice, even my history. And I'd just given her a free pass to walk away, with purse and cellphone in hand.

I followed her on foot all the way home. Clung to her window pane outside, listening to her every sound and movement inside. Over and over again, I reminded myself that I would have to "right" this wrong if she did divulged even a small detail that incriminated me and my family.

She didn't.

"Apparently, he doesn't like doe-eyed girls from next door," she said with a shakey laugh. "Even when she has a double shot of girly on top. He never showed up."

Her roommate consoled her, complimented her not once but twice on her "perfectly doable" doe eyes. Scooped her up ice cream even and told her what a useless prick he must be.

She didn't know the half of it.

"I'm fine, really," she responded, sounding like she really was. "I just want to slump into bed and dream it all off."

I heard her cry in the shower, but not as long or as hard as I would have preferred, given the night she had.

She called her father again before getting into bed, offering him another senior moment.

"Remember when we went to San Francisco and walked up and down the pier, getting free clam chowder samples from all of the restaurants? And then we did that the next day, but brought some fresh rolls along to build makeshift soup breadbowls?"

He did, he answered in a voice that had to be attached to a smile. She offered to make him dinner tomorrow, then promised him twice she was in no kind of trouble. So many times he gave her an opening to spill the truth. And each time she reassured him that everything was fine.

The girl fell asleep quickly. Shock and trauma was tiring like that. And eventually it all came out, everything she had been holding in. Nightmares swooped down, causing her to cry out, shed bitter tears, and curse and damn anything and everything.

I anticipated that.

But I wasn't ready for what followed. Her hand shielded her neck while she called out in a whisper: "No, please don't. Please don't do this----"

Always so polite, even in her sleep--

"......Edward."

That one word rolled off her lips gently for the first time; yet its invocation struck me with such force, I staggered backwards on the thin pane. There was no hatred in its utterance. Only a lyrical quality that rendered the most common of names exotic. How funny, that a young girl could take a word that should only be hissed from her lips, remold it in her mouth, and make it sound beautiful once more.

She didn't utter my name again that night, although I waited silently to hear it.

School was dispensed with the next morning, in favor of following her. Just to be sure there weren't others she'd confide in, I reasoned. But a funny thing happened on the way to surveying her at the local college. Or more like two:

Like the blue Camaro that ran a red light and nearly smashed right into the driver's side of her car.

Or when she insisted on reading a book while walking through the congested parking lot, almost getting run over on three different occasions.

The first two times, I watched in apalled silence.

On the third, I ran in front of the car, yelling for them to slow down.

My thoughts raced back as she disappeared behind her classroom door. Back to last night, when she asserted that her time was up. That her mother only put off the inevitable. As I followed her around for the rest of the day, from classes, to the supermarket, to her father's house where she quietly prepared dinner for the two of them, I could see her point. Danger in all it's various forms seemed to line up to get a stab at her. Was this fate at work though, or her own death wish?

For the first week, my alibi for following her was surveillance. She could ruin everything my family had worked for, with just the slightest slip to a friend. But it soon became clear that she wouldn't talk to anyone about what happened, because she didn't talk to anyone about anything. And by the second week, the surveillance had turned into body guarding. What was the point of letting her live, only to have her get run over in a parking lot? It seemed anticlimatic to let her story end that way.

My days became filled with maneuvers that resembled a video game; anticipating what would come out at her from the right or the left or from up above or down below, and being ready at a moment's notice to counteract its force. Sometimes her lack of awareness made me conclude she just didn't care enough to stay alive. But other times, freakish near-miss accidents made me wonder if the girl had a point about pissing off destiny. Night drives and double features were soon traded in for watching over her. And the price she paid for my secret admission into her life? One word uttered late at night, under the veil of darkness. Just as jarring and beautiful as the first time it was uttered:

"Edward."

The third week, watching _over _her morphed into watching _her_. I had avoided it before, watching over her was easy enough to do. It was task-related and done from a distance. Watching _her_ brought out complications. Like the pooling of venom in my mouth as her translucent skin hinted at her pulsing veins just below the surface. Or the same image that continued to plague me when I stared too long at her, at too close a distance: _Her body writhing below me as I latched on murderously to her neck. My eyes rolling back, enraptured, as her blood pulsed in spurts down my throat. My jaw still moving, attempting to get more, even after her eyes were glassy and lifeless and I knew she was sucked dry. _Or that each time I followed her, a rush of excitement washed over me. Having her back to me, following silently behind, made me feel like I was more on a hunt than a mission.

Those impulses made me want to run the other way, but I worked through them. I had to - there were too many questions I had acquired over time now. Why was she going on with her days, business as usual, if she was so sure she would die soon? Why was she working so hard on that term paper, if it was all for nothing? Did she remember her nightmares the next morning? Wasn't she tired before she even started the day, with all the energy she expended during her dreams? Was she calm because she accepted her fate - or because she welcomed it?

Exacting information just from watching her yielded few answers. Her silent mind and contained actions were too elusive. My impatience got the best of me as I waited until she was settled into her work shift one night. Once her roommate left, I let myself in. Her scent assaulted me the second I entered through her window, and I braced for the images and venom and instincts to have their say within me. They settled eventually though, letting me to take a closer look.

The room was tidy. Decorative touches were minimal, with warm neutrals shading the walls and bed covers. A corkboard hung on an otherwise bare wall with the now infamous thermometer picture. A picture of her mother was pinned there too, youthful in appearance and resembling her daughter. A tacked-on phone number for the local hospital chaplain with a date and time garnered a raised eyebrow.

On top of her dresser, seashells were laid out neatly, alongside small packets of sand with labels on them. "Santa Rosa," read one. Mexico. "La Jolla," read another. San Diego. The seashells were washed clean, but still gave off an unfamiliar scent that made me lean in closer for more.

She loved the ocean. She loved the sun and the heat - things that didn't belong in my world.

I located her photo albums, and found corresponding pictures that went with the packets of sand. Her father took her to the beaches in San Francisco and Oregon, both parent and child posing together in matching sweatshirts. Her mother took her to Mexico and San Diego, even Hawaii. They almost looked like sisters in some of the shots, laughing arm in arm in bikinis.

Her book shelf held the best secrets of all. Shakespeare. Not one of the comedies, but every single one of his tragedies. Lots of poetry. Not one modern author among the lot either, just an overload of the Romantics. Bronte. All three of them. Not one but two copies of Pride and Prejudice. One dog-eared paperback, one hard copied illustrated edition. A small tin with Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" on the lid sat beside them all.

Well, if that didn't explain some things. A girl who was raised on a steady romantic diet of Heathcliff, Mr. Darcy, and Romeo was a dangerous creature. Where were her parents to reign in all the overwrought tendencies?

Said the vampire who almost ate her and was now stalking her. For her own good, of course.

She was very young. Strong and willful and brave, yes. But very young still. Tragedy visited her in the harshest of ways, ripped from her the protective layer of family that kept her innocent all these years. She was coping because she was strong. But she was coping with fanciful notions of Death preying upon her, because that's how Emily or Charlotte or even Anne Bronte would have written the next chapter of her life.

My hand absentmindedly touched her pillow, imagining how many tears it had absorbed over the last weeks. Months, even. How many of those tears were I responsible for?

Shame washed over me as a new round of venom and brutal fantasies infiltrated my mind from the concentrated scent on her pillow. But this time, the sadness couldn't be driven away; it stood right next to the evil daydreams, not budging an inch.

My new routine did not go unnoticed by my family. My night prowls didn't seem different from the outside in.

But apparently I was.

No one asked me why, to my face anyways. But their fleeting thoughts were heard. Esme worried I was "drifting" again, back to a time where my lifestyle drove me away from the family. My eyes, she lamented, my eyes looked alert. Too alert.

Agitated too, Carlisle surveyed. Wild. Bloodlust, both of them concluded. I was faltering. They had always worried this time would come, where my old ways would come out of remission.

Emmett thought I was faltering in other ways. Lust, he concluded. When I shook my head at his silent guess, he continued his argument:

_You're distracted all the time now. You move either too fast, or too slow at school. Or else you're too still, not moving at all for minutes at a time. You leave early from school and early from home, and don't get back until the early morning. You're not here, even when you are. You're somewhere else. Or maybe __with__ someone else._

He smiled as he gauged my reaction to his thoughts, even smiling wider when I shook my head harder.

Rosalie thought very little about it, other than offering that acting weird was not exactly outside my frame of reference.

_A cocked trigger_, Jasper mused. _Quick to anger, to sadness, to laughter, and irritation. Like a soft boil that could be turned up at any time._

Alice was the one family member who knew how to hide her true feelings from me. The harder I tried to dip into her thinking, the more she covered it up with nursery rhymes or counting sheep. And while she wouldn't divulge much for fear her visions would write the future instead of describe it, she was worried with whatever she was seeing.

xx

"I'll be home soon."

_No you won't._ Her eyes pleaded with me; for what, I had no clue. Nor was she going to offer a hint. She walked me outside to my car, out of the ever-watchful eyes of Carlisle.

"I'll be home sooner than I was planning. Is that better?"

_No. Remember who you are, not-_

"Not what you are. Yes, yes, yes - I know that quaint little adage." I tried to smile back at her, but it only made her more angry.

_Stop, Edward..._

She paused for a moment, her fists bunched tightly while her head shook side to side slowly.

"What?" I tried to look contrite, less patronizing.

_I know you're lonely. I know we all make you feel even more lonely at times. I know this makes you feel less lonely what you're doing, even if you aren't sure why. But be careful. You forget for one second who you are, and it will end badly. She's different. She's-_

"It's not like that, Alice. You don't understand what is going on."

_I may not understand it all. But I understand enough to know the tightrope you're walking right now. Just remember---_

Her damned phrase was cut off by the slamming of my door.

I raced away from Alice's cryptic warnings and Carlisle's watchful eyes and Esme's pursed lips. Away from Emmett's smirks and Jasper's furrowed brows and Rosalie's sighs, and towards the hospital. 7:30 PM, the paper on the corkboard read. I wouldn't stay long, if only to appease Alice.

Just check in on her and make sure she got back to her car safely, I promised myself.

Hospitals were avoided at all costs usually. The sheer amount of people in various states of grief and dying and pain made for an overwhelming situation with my mind. And that wasn't even factoring in the free flowing blood on each floor.

My mind shut out all incoming thoughts and I let her bloodscent guide the way. I stopped breathing the minute I located her, but it was too late. The venom punctured the length of my throat, instigating the image of sucking her dry for the hundredth time. But I continued on, eventually getting a hold of myself enough to peer through the opened doors.

A semi-circle of chairs curved around her and a man, presumably the chaplain. They both wore name tags. Alongside her name was the title facilitator." It was an odd mix for her to be "facilitating." I guessed right away it was some sort of grief support group. An internship for school perhaps?

The garrish halogen lights above were bright and unforgiving on the others there. Gaunt cheeks and haunted eyes framed the faces of those mourning. But not all were there for the meeting, I gathered. Several looked like transients who had wandered into the room exclusively for the free coffee and stale smelling doughnuts. The shared grief in the room was overwhelming to me, and I was only standing in the hallway.

And yet, there she sat in the middle of it all, looking perfectly comfortable. Maybe she was, maybe this scene fit her better than some co-ed riddled sports bar. She listened with wide-eyed attention as others spoke; and when it was her turn to contribute, she spoke with economy and wisdom. She hit just the right notes, offering support without coming off precocious with her youthful appearance.

It was hard to reconcile this "facilitator" with the girl who spoke of death as some handlebar-mustache tweaking villain and held seashells and sand among her prized possessions.

Somehow, on the girl, those unforgiving lights didn't make her look more stark. They simply highlighted her milky, smooth skin. Most humans up close were not attractive to our eyes. With our sight, we could see all the imperfections, especially on their outer layer. Sun weathered skin. Rough patches. Wrinkles and ruddy complexions and age spots. Our sight was a damning glare on humans.

But the longer I studied her under the harsh spotlight, the more her imperfections seemed to diminsh. She didn't have many to begin with. Her porcelain skin was almost void of any weathering that would toughen or mark the outer layer. Except for a itinerary of light scars and bruises of accidents past, her skin struck me as almost flawless.

I would have bet she ate well too. The scent she gave off was clean and healthy. The shiny hair, bright eyes, and clear skin were further evidence.

Clear, soft skin.

My mind's eye flashed to the night when my face was buried around her neck and hair and collarbone. The fragrance and heat and suppleness were devastating, even from mere recollection.

Everything that I'd seen as alien and weak when I first preyed upon her took on a different tone now underneath these lights.

Soft. Warm. Touchable. Pulsing. Breathing. Alive.

Everything I wasn't..........

"Would you like to join us?"

The gentle voice brought me back to the present. The congregation was facing me now.

I tried to retreat back into the shadows of the dark hall, but it was too late. The downside of shutting out of everything around me was it could make me careless.

"Would you like to join us," The chaplain repeated.

I was about to retreat, when I froze in place.

The girl gave me a curious look, before waving at me.

Not an overenthusiastic wave. Not a forced wave either. Somewhere in the middle of friendly and cautious.

I couldn't help myself, I broke out into a smile, even if I wanted to shake her by the shoulders at the same time. Who greets monsters with hand waves and half smiles?

Girls who cheer on Heathcliff and Beauties and their Beasts, that's who.

"Come join us," the chaplain prompted.

An empty chair near the doorway seemed like a good compromise. The space from doorway and chair seemed neverending with the spotlight on me now. She stared at me intently as I walked, a stare I was familiar with. Those scrutinizing eyes took in every inch of my face that night I cradled her in my arms, as they did now. Was she recognizing the odd sheen my complexion took on under bright lights again? Or was she remembering how brittle or cold my skin was? I broke eye contact with her first.

The meeting got back on track. I listened to her every word, knowing on some level that what she shared here may be more insightful than watching her talk casually with her roommate for three years straight. I was so absorbed with her command of the meeting, I went back to shutting everything down around me. Until two words literally screamed out past my filter:

"Sweet quim..."

And then four:

"Tasty tenderloin."

My head jerked around, letting the mental walls down so I could hear who was saying what. The problem was it was more than one voice.

Several in fact.

Vicious thoughts were being indulged about her. The most innocent of gestures, from her rearranging her legs, to touching her neck, were only fueling their imaginations. Anger ripped through me, watching her take on the role of an administering angel to the group.

The images in their thoughts took me aback. These weren't your average dirty fantasies from bored men. Some were very detailed in their brutality and humiliation. There were men in here who put their actions where their thoughts were, I could literally feel it.

My first impulse was to walk out into the darkness and then take it up with them privately, preferably in a dark back alley. But Alice and her cliches popped into my mind quicker than I could manage:

_Remember who you are......_

Who was I? I was a recovering avenging angel, who learned bitterly that the pathway to hell was paved with good intentions.

_Not what you are...._

What was I? A killing machine. Mix the machinery with some self righteousness, and watch me self-implode in record time.

Maybe this was what Alice had seen. Maybe this was why she repeated that phrase; to remind me how far I'd come, and how I couldn't go back down that path again.

No, I wouldn't falter tonight. I was in control. But it didn't mean I couldn't find a healthy compromise.

My legs were moving before I could stop them, past the semi-circle and the girl. I threw down my chair hard about five feet behind her and sat down. Her body grew rigid, most likely unsure of my intentions. But she wasn't who I was focusing on at the moment.

I dare you, my eyes communicated to the lot of them. I dare you to stare at the angel while the devil himself looks on.

All mental improprieties ceased as a new crop of fears and anxiety flooded through their minds.

My eyes latched onto the perpetrators for the rest of the meeting.... all the while knowing her scent would launch yet another replay of my own murderous fantasies - fantasies that put their daydreams to shame.

**xxx**


	5. Hurt By The Cold

**Chapter 5: Hurt By the Cold....**

**a/n**: Thanks for the reviews, lovelies! I love them all!

**a/n: **The song used for the chapter title and chapter end quote: **"My Friends" by Red Hot Chili Peppers.** The link to the song is on the top of my profile. A beautiful song about watching on helplessly as friends struggle, just out of your reach. Give it a listen.

_**Quote: 205: "I can't explain it right...but he's even more unbelievable behind the face." The vampire who wanted to be good - who ran around saving people's lives so he wouldn't be monster.....**_

_**xx**_

_"Please. Please don't....."_

_My head was tipped back, neck exposed. He hovered over me, looking back and forth between my lips and my vein._

_"Please, Edward."_

_He froze at the sound of his name; a minute later, his hands set me down on the ground. He stepped backwards towards the door, his eyes never leaving mine._

_" Edward. Don't--"_

_He walked out the door, finally breaking our mutual gaze._

_"Go."_

The dream flickered out like a light bulb, with everything going dark. My eyes opened on cue.

5:58 AM.

I felt exhausted from my night's sleep, and I hadn't even begun the day.

**xx**

The dream started out the same almost every evening. I was back in the abandoned warehouse. He was above me, ready to strike. And many times, he did. The dream wouldn't end there, either; it lingered in bloody detail, until I woke up crying out into the night.

Then the dreams seeped into the daylight. At first, I thought I was seeing things. A flash of auburn hair here, a hint of pale skin there. The more intent I was on catching the fleeting presence, the more elusive it became. So, I played reverse psychology. My head stopped snapping side to side, trying to catch a glimpse. My eyes focused on the tree ahead, or on the book I held in my hand. The more I ignored _it_, the more _it _came out.

Him, more like. Or a figment of my imagination that resembled him.

He followed me to the most mundane of destinations really. School. Back home. Work. At first it froze me with fear. Either I was hallucinating and thus officiallly certifiable; or else, he was back to finish the job I'd tricked him out of the first time around.

Get in line, kid.

But boredom edged out fear after several hours of his covert pursuit. So I decided to fuck with his head, since he was fucking with mine.

I'd slow down walking, he slowed down. I sped up, so did he. After taking him on several wild goose chases around campus just for shits and giggles, I wondered if messing with him was the smartest thing to do. But the chases had dipped into dark hallways and quiet corners where he could have easily struck me down, yet he hadn't. He was too busy striking out in other places.

At cars that were swerving too fast in my direction. Or cyclists who almost ran over my foot on crowded campus paths. Even inanimate objects were subject to his self-righteous wrath. I heard, rather than saw, him kick an offending stone out of the way that just moments earlier caused me to trip.

I couldn't help but shake my head at the end of the first day, as I sped up and then down sharply, watching him change gears accordingly three cars back. Either I was one step away from moving into a rubber padded room, or else he was one confused little monster who was slacking on the job. Monsters were meant to stalk, sure - but not for their prey's benefit.

**xx**

"Bells, you sure you're okay?" My dad looked my face over with a interrogator's eye in between bites of homemade lasagna. The third meal I'd made for him this week. I thought he was launching into another inquiry about my odd shift in behavior lately. The daily phone calls, dinner at home several times a week, calling him "Dad" often and without cringing. But then he touched the skin underneath my eyes, running a finger along the length of the dark circles.

"Just tired, Pops."

He shook his head as he scooped up another forkful. He knew better. "I was talking to Billy the other day. His cousin is a family therapist with an office down in Port Angeles."

I raised an eyebrow. Which he didn't notice since he was too busy rearranging the carrots on top of his salad. "I was thinking about maybe making an appointment for both of us." He suddenly found the wall clock fascinating as he waited for my response. "I just think it's been a hard year, and it couldn't hurt if we saw him a couple times. Maybe talked about some things."

I studied my father as he fixated on the ceiling paint now. His face, so often poker-ed with his line of work, looked fragile now. He rarely spoke of my mother; even right now, he couldn't bring himself to use her name as the reason this year had been "hard." But my mother's presence haunted almost every room in the house. The same kitchen curtains she'd sewn herself still dressed the windows. The same duvet cover she'd picked out adorned his bed, dating itself with paisleys and an odd color combination of yellows and browns. Even the same candles sat in their holders on the fireplace, as unused as the day she left them almost two decades earlier. My mind flashed forward to Charlie losing me as well. How he'd be trapped inside this morbid, living memorial for both my mother and me.

Not acceptable.

"I'd be up for it if you are," I answered, eyeing the plate of brownies on the Lazy-Susan in front of us. It was the only baked good in the house that didn't come factory-wrapped. I pointed to them. "Sue?"

My father nodded. "Yeah, she had some left over from Seth's Eagle Scout dinner last week."

Sue. Sue Clearwater. Of course.

"I haven't seen Seth for a long time. Why don't you invite them over on Friday and I'll make my baked spaghetti?"

**xx**

_Try to rest more, Bells. Sleep deprivation can play games with your mind._

What did Charlie mean by that before he sent me on my way? And more importantly, what if sleeping was the very thing that stopped me from resting?

I logged in seven hours of sleep per night. But my deep sleep brought out all the ghosts and monsters from my closet. My mother came to me often. At first we'd spend hours talking, lying side by side on the hammock she had on her front porch. The conversations were just like they always had been: stream of consciousness sessions where one subject melted into another subject randomly - comfortably.

But I always ended the conversation the same way: "I'm sorry."

Renee stared back at me in silence, the warm smile answering for her: "I'm not."

One night, the hammock disappeared. Another night, she raised her hand up when I approached her.

"No," she whispered, regret evident in her voice.

We still talked, but with space between us now. Each time the distance increased.

She surprised me one night by taking my hand, and leading me through the darkness with quick strides. Down a deserted highway and towards a wharf with pungent smelling water. To a back warehouse, where she waited silently alongside me, a reassuring expression on her face. He walked in a short time later, casually smiling at my mother. She nodded without a word, putting my hand into his. Walking backwards towards the door, her eyes never left mine as Edward gently cradled me into his lap.

"Mom, please. Please don't---"

She gave me one last smile, a quick hand wave that ended up on top of her lips, as if she were about to cry. And then she walked out the door.

"Go."

Renee hadn't returned since.

**xxx**

"Do you know him, Bella?" The chaplain whispered quietly into my ear, but a throat clearing behind me signaled he had overheard.

"Not really," was all I could offer the poor man.

The first fifteen minutes of the meeting had gone well. My professor, the sneaky bastard, had put me up to this. It was an excellent opportunity for my major, facilitating alongside the hospital chaplain with group grief support. But I didn't nab it on my academic performance alone. My prof was trying to get me to do what I hadn't gotten around to doing yet - deal formally with what had happened with my mother and me.

I didn't have to offer up my own story in specific terms, I simply listened to others as they offered theirs. Sometimes the chaplain would respond; other times, he asked me if I had any thoughts to offer. I felt self-conscious at first, being much younger than everyone else. But soon I was lost in the process, of giving and receiving with strangers who I would normally walk past on the street without a second glance. And yet, when forced to sit down across from one another and take the time to really look, I could see them clearly. I recognized the slump of their shoulders and the hollowed eyes. I recognized them because I was marked by the same brand of grief too, of being left behind violently and without warning.

Then he broke the connection with that hard slap of a chair behind me.

When I saw a flash of dark auburn out in the dark hallway, I dismissed it. Just like I had been dismissing "it" a lot lately. I'd spent too many nights acknowledging "it" in my dreams, that it seemed redundant to wrestle with "it" in the daytime too.

The dream always started out the same now, since Renee had left. I was back in the abandoned warehouse. Edward was above me, ready to strike. Bitter tears began to pour out, partly because of him, and partly because my mother had turned me over to him in the first place. But instead of striking, he stilled and stared. His eyes expressed what his voice would not: he would spare me. But they also expressed more:

_I'm sorry for what I am. _

At first in the dream, I offered nothing back, and left him to struggle with his existential issues alone. But finally, I answered back with the only word that seemed appropriate:

"Edward."

The name that was uttered by his real mother and loved ones and friends, before the "devil himself" changed him into what he was. The name of the boy who still laid claim on him somewhere inside.

Sometimes we talked. Sometimes we said nothing. Sometimes I cried, and he comforted me with kind words. Or songs, his voice uttering melodies and lyrics that harkened back to another time and place. Sometimes he told me to go, and I did. Sometimes he left without a word, even when I asked him not to.

In a word or several, my dreams of my would-be killer were messed up, and so was I. Stockholm Syndrome, meet Bella Swan.

So in the stark light of day, I tried not to dwell on that pleasant thought. When I saw a flash of his hair or his skin or his car, I looked away now. When I got ready for bed and felt a pair of eyes watching me from the kitchen window, I ignored them.

And for a moment, in that group session, with the gentle chaplain by my side, I had forgotten my situation. Of Death being the shittiest, most humorless houseguest ever, overstaying it's visit by months now. Of a beautiful boy, or a hallucination of him, that wasn't sure if he wanted to eat me or turn me into his pet. That was all pushed to the side so that I could focus on the one person I wanted to see most, but couldn't even conjure up in dreams anymore: Renee.

And then he had to ruin it all.

Not right away - I waved reflexively when he first stepped out of the shadows at the chaplain's request. That's what happens when you spend hours a night with someone, even just in your head. He sat down for several minutes, as quiet as a church mouse. But then his mood changed violently, making a scene by throwing his chair right behind mine. Within ten minutes, several from the group left. I didn't have to look behind me to know the terror he could cause with a mere scowl. By the end of the session, the discussion had become stilted, forced.

When it was over, I left the room without looking back. As I unlocked my truck door, I yelled out into the dark silence. "Meet me at my window - now. I'm _sure_ you know the way."

Not fifteen minutes later, said scowling boy was crouching by my pane as I opened up the window.

"What the hell were you doing in there? Do you know you probably cost me that position? What with you scaring half of the group away before the meeting was even over?"

"Good, they needed to leave. You don't need to hang out there anyways. " His tone was defensive, indignant. "The ones that left weren't there for help, they were there to do harm. To you, specifically."

Takes one to know one.

Anger flushed through me as he stared on without apology. I didn't even know where to begin, but I started by responding to his answer. "You're right. I didn't need to be there. I didn't need a safe place where I could sort my thoughts out about my mother in a sane environment. No, I should hang out with you, because that's healthier. Hanging out with the guy who tried to kill me a couple weeks back. Or maybe I should hang out here at home, where death and the promise of it permeates every square inch of this apartment."

His face showed no emotion - except for the tight pursed line of his naturally pouted lips. He didn't deny either charges either.

"You feel _it_ too, don't you? You feel _it_ all around me here." "It" was a better word than "Death." "It" made my existence sound less melodramatic.

He nodded slowly. "It doesn't just stay here in this apartment though. It tags along right behind you wherever you go."

"Like you do?" I countered.

"I'm just keeping an eye on both of you."

"Why?"

"Why not," was all he offered back.

I began shooting off questions; he responded with silence.

"For every answer you give, you get to ask a question." That got his attention.

"Why do you come here at night?"

"I have no where else to go." His answer only made me want to ask another question. He did this out of boredom? Or a pastime in lieu of stamp collecting? But his question interrupted my thinking.

"What do you dream of at night?"

"I used to dream about my mother."

"I know you dream of your mother. But what else do you dream about?"

I shook my head. "That's two questions. Why do you have no where else to go?" He'd boasted of having "more" of a family than I did; yet, he always seemed to be wandering around like an orphan.

"Why do I have no where else to go? Because I live in Forks."

Smart ass.

"What else do you dream about? Besides your mother?" I opened my mouth but couldn't get the words out, unsure of giving up the incriminating details.

"Do you dream of our first night," he pressed.

I wanted to laugh. "Our night" sounded like "our song." Or "our first dance." Something sweet and innocent.

"Yes. I dream of that too. You replaced my mother in my dreams now." The words came out bitter, even for my ears. He mumbled "sorry" in a low whisper.

"How do you know I'm dreaming of my mother?"

He lowered his head. "Your dreams were more vivid when they were of her. You cried harder, smiled bigger, talked louder. Everything was just...more. And then something changed. You were inconsolable for weeks. Now I know why." He stared at my bed for a moment before continuing. "Do you want to die?"

I couldn't help but laugh at the utter lack of segueway going into such an inquiry.

"Was that an offer? No. As both a theoretical and a proposal, No."

The look on his face seemed unconvinced. I tried to shift the discussion back to the previous subject.

"You said I was inconsolable for awhile. Does that mean someone tried to console while I slept?" All the vivid memories of the past weeks in my dreams - the soft, kind words from him, the humming, the low singing that soothed me, even as I laid unconscious. Had they been more than just dreams?

The smallest upturn at the corner of his lip appeared. "Perhaps."

The slight smile disappeared all too quickly and he was back to being somber. "Do you think there's a thin line between wanting to die and not wanting to live?"

He wasn't letting this go. "No, I don't. I don't want to die. I'm not suicidal."

He raised an eyebrow, lifting his hand and gesturing between us, this casual conversation between predator and prey not exactly pleading my case very well.

"I know you're not suicidal. But what....." He trailed off, looking at me for a long moment, gauging my expression before he started again. "What if you didn't have to be suicidal to will yourself to die? You have brushes all day with death, Bella. You don't have to drive yourself off a cliff to kill yourself. All you have to do is be a little careless, not bother to look left or right or up while you walk, and that could do you in. It's waiting for you to make one false move, you're right. But I don't see you fighting back, even though I know you have it in you to. I've seen it first hand."

It. He used "it" for death too, and it almost made me smile. If it wasn't for the fact that I was too fixated on how he uttered my name outloud for the first time. It rolled off his tongue like he'd been saying it for years, and with me in mind.

"In the meantime, while you wait for me to fight back, are you doing the fighting for me?"

He didn't answer, but he didn't have to. That's exactly what he was doing.

"Why? Why waste so much time saving someone who's a lost cause?" My eyes were tearing now, and I wasn't even sure why. Was I touched by his gestures, or creeped out, or saddened that he just confirmed everything I'd suspected for months about my fate?

"I already told you, Bella. I have nowhere else to go."

The first time he had voiced those words, he was being a flippant smart ass. But this time, his utterance took on a whole new meaning. He had nowhere to go - and no one to go home too. But I didn't have time to ponder the implications, because he looked like he wanted to jump off the ledge at the moment.

"Well, you're in luck. Because I have no where else to be. I make for easy stalking." He didn't answer my retort right away, only stared at me with his piercing hazel eyes. I didn't know how he operated, only knew his moods could change quickly and without warning. I tried to back him off of brooding. Those dark moods scared me, and for good reason.

"This goes without saying, but you're a shitty monster, by the way. Here you've had ample opportunity to chomp me up, and you blow it every time with the boy scout routine. Hasn't your mother ever told you not to play with your food?"

His eyes narrowed, making me wonder if maybe we weren't "there" yet in terms of familiarity. But then his face lit up, and he laughed for the first time ever. It was a beautiful sound.

"Not as shitty as you are at being a human. You've got a wolf chasing you and what do you do? You open up your window to him. That doesn't make you a lamb by any stretch."

"Wait, now I'm a shitty lamb? And you're a wolf? Not only are you a shitty monster, but a shitty metaphorist on top of it."

We spent the next few minutes in silence, silently regarding eachother. We had regarded one another like this before, that first night. "Our night, " as he called it. When he had silently decided to let me go, he'd stared into my eyes just like this. Just as we went off script last time, we were going off script again. This time we were venturing past life and death decisions, and into even stranger territory: friendship.

I had extended the first hand out, not realizing it. I should have ran out of that warehouse the minute he had given me the okay. Instead, I stayed, and offered him what little I possessed in that moment: my hand, a few kind words. It was meant as a thank-you at the time, a good-bye gesture.

Little did I know, it was like signing on a dotted line for a new beginning. Just as I offered him some momentary warmth, was he offering himself as a buffer against me and death?

I thought back to that maddening dream, where my mother literally handed me over to him before she walked away. I thought back to just minutes earlier, when he'd spoken of wolves in sheep's clothing in the grief meeting, and how I had thought in return: takes one to know one.

Maybe Mom had been on to something. Maybe it did take "one" to know "one" to give me a fighting chance against such a formidable adversary. Maybe someone dangerous was the safest option for me in the world I lived in right now.

I had a choice to make. I could ask him to leave; not just now, but forever, and he would. Every fiber within me told me that was the smart choice, the logical one. The choice Dr. Phil and Oprah and Dr. Drew would all applaud. And yet...

"Listen, I've got a mid-term tomorrow. I'd love to keep the pajama party going until the late hours, but I need to get some sleep." I pointed at the dark circles underneath his own eyes. " And you do too."

I scuddled to my closet, reaching for an extra blanket and pillow. "Now, I'm an old fashioned girl, so you can't kick it in my room for the night. But if you need a place to stay, you could sleep in my car, or the couch in the front room if you promise not eat my roommate."

He smiled, and it was quickly becoming apparent he liked monster jokes. At least he had a sense of humor.

"Do you mind if I just rest on your balcony? I'll be gone before dawn, I can go home then."

Home. His family sounded like a bunch of assholes if you asked me, locking him out all night like that. But I kept my mouth shut, both about his family and the fact that it was freezing outside.

"Sure."

He situated himself on the lounge chair in my dingy excuse for a balcony, while I settled under my covers. We had a view of one another from the window facing my bed. He was huddled under the blanket, but otherwise seemed unaffected by the cold. But his head kept burrowing into the pillow, as if he couldn't find a comfortable position. He looked very young in that moment, his face illuminated only by moonlight. I wondered what he had looked like before this happened to him, imagining his nose a little less straight, his cheekbones not so cut. His face would have been less perfect I imagined, but still beautiful. Kind too. I bet he had always been kind...

My mind raced in and out of consciousness, too many ideas swirling in my head at once. Worries that I was being unhospitable leaving him outside in the cold like he was. Worried that Oprah would not approve of this new relationship, since he basically checklisted every "red flag" she'd ever mentioned about bad men. Worried that Emily would find him while she got an early morning drink of water and then call the cops. Who would then call my father. Worried that Renee was wrong, that he could easily end up being my undoing instead of my saving grace.

All of those worries came to a head, waking me up with a start.

5:58 AM.

Dawn was just breaking, and I felt oddly rested for once. I peered out the window, knowing he would be gone already, and he was. So was the pillow I'd given him, despite the neatly folded blanket he'd left on the lounging chair.

**xxx**

"I heard a little girl  
And what she said was something beautiful  
To give your love no matter what  
Is what she said...."  
--- Red Hot Chili Peppers

**a/n: Okay, a quick reminder folks. The Support Stacie Auction is this weekend. Stacie is a ff lovely who is suffering from cancer, and every season ff writers from different fandoms get together, auction off their writing duties to raise money for her. Last auction yielded over 26,000 dollars! Yes, I'm auctioning myself off, but so are 50 other Twilight ff writers, so PLEASE. Go check it out and bid whatever you can to this awesome fundraiser. Deets are on my profile page, and PM if you have further questions. Stacie needs the love ya'll, I paid 5.00 for a bid and it was quite exciting---like winning in Vegas or something....:)**


	6. As Soft As Your Pillow

**Chapter 6, pt. 1: As Soft As Your Pillow**

**a/n**: Thanks for all the reviews!

**a/n**: So, I wrote this chapter. And it was almost 9,000 words and just covered too much, so I'm dividing it into two updates. I'll update the other half in a day or two.

**a/n:** The italics are when people are thinking inside their heads and Edward can hear them.

**a/n**: Title and lyrical quote from Radiohead's "15 Steps:"--the song link is on the top of my profile. I don't know why but Edward is so Nine Inch Nails and Radioheadish to me..lol

**xxx**

**quote, p.88: **"So, in plain English, are we friends now?"

"friends...."he mused, dubious.

"Or not," I muttered.

He grinned. "Well, we can try, I suppose. But I'm warning you now that I'm not a good friend for you." Behind his smile, the warning was real.

**xxx**

I inhaled deeply against the pillow, burying my face into its plush center.

One minute turned into five. Five turned into forty.

Still nothing.

Just random memories of her. That nervous habit of shaking her foot when she sat. Her brilliant smile when I told her I had nowhere to go because I lived in Forks. The sand packets in her bedroom, and the way her eyes scrunched up slightly when she laughed. Her neck sloping to the side in that midnight blue blouse that scooped down past her collarbone--

Her collarbone.....

That small detail of a larger picture ended up being my undoing, forcing the unwanted vision forward:

_Her body writhing below me as I latched on murderously to her neck. My eyes rolling back, enraptured, as her blood pulsed in spurts down my throat. My jaw still moving, attempting to get more, even after her eyes were glassy and lifeless and I knew she was sucked dry_.

I groaned in frustration, putting my face back into the pillow for one another try. Forty minutes wasn't good enough. Unbeknownst to her, that fantasy popped up regularly while I was in Bella's presence. There was no rhyme or reason to the switch from innocent to murderous thoughts. The collarbone had instigated it this time. The time before was watching her place her palm gently to her neck the other night. The time before that? Bella's pursed lips, curving upwards ever so slightly.

Two hours. I was going to make it up to the two hour mark by tonight, even if I had to imagine the high school janitor and his propensity to show crack while mopping the whole time.

The door swept open suddenly. Carlisle.

"Edward?" His face was equal parts panic and horror. My body shielded the pillow from his view. He smelled it though, zoning in on its fragrace with his nose.

"Whose is that?"

All I could utter was a vague "huh?" in response; my mind was still reeling from Bella's scent, rendering me useless for any form of conversation.

Carlisle tried to snatch the pillow, but I smacked his hand away.

"Don't touch that." The tone came out harsher, more raw than I'd expected. Carlisle slumped down on the bed beside me, shaking his head.

"What have you done?"

His mind was racing now, although I didn't need to be a mind reader to know what it was racing about. This was how it had all began before. More and more hours where I was unaccounted for. Always in a distracted state, and withdrawn from the family. Lying, avoiding those who knew me best, like Esme back then. Alice now. And then the momentos. Momentos that served as time machines, transporting me back to the moments I desired most.

Carlisle had walked into my room, very much like this evening, years before. Found me in the same position; but instead of a pillow, I was clinging to a shirt. At one time a white shirt. But after I got through with its owner, it was drenched in crimson red. When Carlisle caught me, it had faded to a dark brown. But every time I held it to my nose and breathed in deeply, it was like I was back in the moment. Feeding while he struggled against me, feeling and hearing and seeing more vibrantly than I'd ever had before, the more I took from him.

Carlisle assumed I was doing the same thing now, recreating a moment in time. Momentos of one's killing weren't exclusive to our kind; human killers had similar rituals.

His hand slowly reached out to the pillow. "Edward, what is this? Whose is this?"

"A friend's."

_Lies_, his thoughts screamed out. _He's lying again_.

"I'm not lying, it's a friends."

_Where is this friend? Who is this friend?_

I couldn't help but laugh. 'She's alive, if that's what you mean by "where." As to who? Just someone I met.'

He studied my eyes now, searching for any speckles of crimson.

"What, Pops? Are you checking my eyes for any reefer madness?" My attempt at humor fell flat. Carlisle put his hand to his forehead and closed his eyes, trying to maintain some semblance of control as he spoke to me through his mind.

_Your colloquialisms are about fifty years too late, and you didn't even use them when you lived through that era. Who is this friend?_

"I met her at the movies one night. It's nothing, really."

_If it's nothing, why are you taking her possessions for your own use?_

I didn't answer him, just stared back into his eyes.

_Exactly what makes you friends? Wouldn't she be surprised that her friend spends hours on end in his bedroom encasing himself in her scent?_

Answer to the latter question? Probably not. Answer to the former question? Well, that was a little harder to answer.

**xx**

It had been three weeks since she first offered me her balcony for a nighttime refuge.

"I'll rent it out to you for free," she'd said. "Just don't get caught out there. If my dad gets wind of a stranger on my balcony, he'll shoot first and ask questions later."

She set up boundaries along with the offer though.

"Don't follow me from behind. Or all day long for that matter."

Days hovering around her were off limits to me now, but not without some stipulations on my end.

"I'll be more careful. I'll look both ways before crossing the parking lot. I won't even read while I'm walking anymore," she reassured me.

"And use your turn signals, you never use your turn signals," I added.

I didn't understand why she seemed okay with me showing up night after night, never once shooing me away. Instead, she always waved and then opened her window to me. "It's like you met me at the office Christmas party instead of on the blind date from hell."

"Well, for better or for worse, you're the only person who knows what's going on in my life right now. And you forget: I've had a tag-along for months." She motioned over her shoulder, a gesture to her insistence that the threat of death was always with her. "He's a humorless bore who's turned me into an even bigger loner than before. You banter well, and you're pretty to look at, and the tag-along seems a little scared of you. So, you're a definite upgrade."

Being an upgrade from Death itself wasn't something to write home about, but I took what I could get from her.

On her end, she didn't understand my newfound interest in her.

"Have I been promoted from drumstick to small pet for you now? Like a gerbil, or a pet rock?" She packaged her sentiments in humor, but her eyes were dead serious in their inquiry.

"No, give yourself more credit. You're on par with a housecat at the very least."

She smiled whenever I teased her, which felt like some small accomplishment.

Bella didn't smile enough.

She teased me right back, sometimes mercilessly. Mostly about being a monster. There was always some tart comment rolling off her full lips:

"What kind of monster drives a Volvo? Silver, even."

Or...

"Was there a monster convention where you guys all took a vote that it was okay to stray from all-black and venture into neutrals now? You wear a lot of neutrals for a monster."

She asked if it bothered me that she joked about my reality. I told her I liked it. No one ever got close enough to tease; with the exception of Emmett, not even my family. They treated me like fine china at home, so sure I was about to break at any moment.

**xx**

My days went back to normal, just like she requested. I made it to my first period class on time now, turned in my work, and sat by my brothers and sisters in the cafeteria like before. But the gap was widening between us. The more I drifted away, the more they tried to engage me. Which only made me drift further - to the point of spending luchtime in my car daily.

When I finally visited Bella at night, I made my presence known right away, like she asked. While I hadn't graduated to the front door yet, I still knocked on her window sill. Or car door.

"Very human," she complimented me.

Who was the pet now?

I still kept watch over her when she went out at night. With her knowledge now, even though she didn't understand what all the concern was about. Of course she didn't, she couldn't read minds. And from all my years of hearing and observing others in their most private and public moments, thoughts always anticipated ones actions.

I headed to the movies next door when she worked at the coffeehouse, keeping an ear in her direction the whole time. I sat in the back of her grief support meetings, keeping tabs on those in attendance. The more I dipped into the thoughts of those around Bella, the more I realized her youthful beauty inspired the baser instincts in many.

Hearing their thoughts put me in a nasty mood. And then it became nastier when their thoughts caused me to notice things about her that hadn't crossed my mind before. Like the way her lower lip pouted out, and she'd sink her teeth into its flesh. Or the way her legs peeked out from under her short skirts, all smooth and creamy. And how her dark mane of hair swished against the small of her back when she walked. Always at a slower pace than her swishing hips. It was memorizing, like watching two pendulums on a Grand Father Clock competing for your attention.

My mood became nastiest when their fixating turned into fantasizing. Because that girl who they wanted to bend over and hike her skirt up and push into? Was the same girl who still cried in her dreams at night and had to socialize with monsters for lack of better company. Like she needed to be put upon anymore than she already was.

Bella was the only thing holding me back from crushing their Adam's Apples in with one swift punch to the neck, scolding me with her eyes everytime she saw my mood sour. Murderous gazes in the perpetrators' direction were my only option, and even those were limited to when the good chaplain was looking in the opposite direction.

"Don't listen to their thoughts then, " Bella offered one night after a particularly murderous look caused a man to flee on the spot. She was dressed in an old, oversized t-shirt and pajamas now, sitting Indian style on top of her bed. This was the girl that none of those men saw, but I did. Sweet and vulnerable, too trusting. As evidenced by her letting me sit inside her window pane now.

"What if I stopped listening, and then something happened to you because I wasn't paying attention," I countered.

"Then you'd go to Petsmart and buy another goldfish after you gave me a two flush funeral down the toilet."

If it wasn't already clear, Bella Swan never met a pet joke she didn't like.

"I would never do that. You'd plug up the toilet and then how would I explain it all to the plumber?"

Her smile faded before she spoke more quietly: "Why do you all this? I still don't understand."

I didn't either, really.

"Do you want my forgiveness?"

Not quite, I told her.

"Your grace rather than your forgiveness is all I can ask for."

Her eyebrows furrowed. "I flunked Catechism. What's the difference?"

How could I make her understand exactly?

"Well, forgiveness is a gift someone grants you, usually after you've righted a wrong. Did some sort of penance to earn back good favor. But what I did to you that first night, Bella, all the terror I put you through for hours? I can never right that, I can't earn your forgiveness back no matter how hard I try. Grace is a gift too, but it's unmerited favor and kindess from someone who has no good reason to even offer it to you. I don't deserve your forgiveness, and I don't deserve your grace. But with grace, that's the point."

She thought over what I'd said for a minute before shrugging her shoulders. "Those definitions are a bit lofty and abstract for me. But speaking of gift giving, I hope grace is as cost efficient as I'm making it. All you've gotten out of me are a second hand blanket and a lounge chair I stole from the community pool with half of the padding missing."

Silly Bella. She didn't realize offering a blanket to a monster who almost ate her up was grace in its purest form.

**xx**

My favorite nights were when she worked. Once we got home, she'd share silly work stories, which often seemed straight out of a "Stupid Human Tricks" segment. And I'd summarize the movie I'd just watched, along with a usually scathing review.

"It's comforting to know that caustic, bitter wit knows no interspecies boundaries," I told her one evening after she laughed at a particularly merciless review.

"Pfft, I know. Apparently, they limit self-righteously smug blow hards to one per species. It was only a matter of time before we found one another."

Found one another, I repeated several times for the rest of that evening.

Movie reviews were often a segueway for discussing books. Or more often, a chance to mock her reading preferences.

"With your bouncy hair and flirty skirts, who would have ever pegged you for a poetry nerd? Sonnets even.." I shuddered in indignation.

"The flirty skirts are a deflection from the nerd tendencies. Unfortunately, you're too pretty to distract like normal boys. Pretty monsters are bad for my self esteem."

She gauged me carefully for my response; and because my response seemed to carry so much weight, I froze, giving her no response at all. She just sighed and changed the subject. "Okay, read me some Jane Eyre now."

"With what voices?"

"Um...how about Rhett Butlerish Clark Gable for Mr. Rochester and Marilyn Monroe for Jane?"

I was never a natural comedian, I could only muster up a clever zinger now and then. That role belonged soley to Emmett in our family unit. But I had struck comedic gold with Bella when I fused my ability to mimic movie star voices with my love for skewering her literary arsenal of overwrought romanticism.

"How did you get so good with your impersonations," she wondered out loud one evening.

"Let's just say before I had a balcony to hang out on at night, movie theaters were my nighttime retreats."

"How long have they been your nighttime retreat?"

"Awhile." She processed my answer and its implications silently, before going on to the next question without another word on the matter.

Her favorite pairing was me reading Romeo and Juliet aloud, with James Cagney as Romeo and Woody Allen as Juliet. But she was determined to top it one night. She pulled out a very loved and overused hardcover and held it up.

"The Little Prince. With.....Marlon Brando as the Prince, and Adam Sandler as the Fox."

"You know what," I confessed," I've never read that book."

She gasped in shock, clutching it tightly to her chest. "You've never read The Little Prince? God, my mother and I read this together every night when I was a child. "

She opened up to the middle of the book haphazardly, patting her hand on the edge of her bed for me to sit down. I opted for the rocking chair in the corner.

"This book is best read aloud minus voice impersonations and with someone you love....." She let those last words dangle in the air for a minute before continuing: "Or at least someone you like enough not to eat."

She settled onto her stomach on the bed and began to read:

**"Who are you, "asked the Little Prince and added, "You are very pretty to look at."**

She raised a suggestive eyebrow my way.

**"I am a Fox."**

**Come play with me, "proposed the Little Prince, " I'm so unhappy."**

**"I cannot play with you, " said the Fox, "I'm untamed."**

Bella paused, her eyes conveying a wistfulness in my direction. If I could have wished for anything in that moment, it would have been to know what laid exactly behind her expression.

**"I'm looking for friends. What does that mean ----- tame?"**

**"It means to establish ties," said the Fox.**

Bella lifted her head up towards me. "Have we established ties?"

"Yes," I answered truthfully.

"Have we established _enough_ ties?"

Enough ties to be make me safe? Her safe?

"I don't know."

From that night onward, a new ritual was established. She read a little bit more to me from the book about a Prince and a Rose and a Fox. And each night, as I settled down into her broken-down lounge chair, on her broken-down balcony, underneath her useless second-hand blanket, I asked myself: How many ties would be enough?

**xx**

_"One by one  
In procession  
It comes to us all  
It's as soft as your pillow..."_

_----Radiohead_

(The rest of the lyrics don't apply, but I love this refrain here - the notion that something can creep up on us all no matter who we are, as softly as a pillow that we don't even realize its arrival)

ps: This is the song used in the ending credits of Twilight, and can I just say, the ending credits are the best part of the film? The images they use along with this song are very dreamlike and beautiful....


	7. I'll Run Away With You

**Chapter 7: I'll Run Away With You**

**a/n: **Thanks for the reviews, lovelies! I appreciate them!

**a/n:** Italicized lines are thoughts.

**a/n**: The title and lyrical quote at the end comes from the overplayed yet very applicable "Just Like Heaven" from the Cure. Its link is on my profile.

**xx**

**quote, p.267: "I was afraid...because, for well, obvious reasons, I can't stay with you. And I'm afriad that I'd like to stay with you, much more than I should. " I looked down at his hands as I spoke. It was difficult for me to say this aloud.**

**"Yes," he agreed slowly. "That is something to be afraid of, indeed. Wanting to be with me. That's really not in your best interest."**

**xx**

_chapter 6(last chapter, Edward got caught by Carlisle as he was breathing in a "momento" pillow of Bellas to help desensitize him; however, to Carlisle, the action makes him wonder if Edward is back to his "old" ways):_

_Bella lifted her head up towards me. "Have we established ties?"_

_"Yes," I answered truthfully._

_"Have we established __enough__ ties?"_

_Enough ties to be make me safe? Her safe?_

_"I don't know._"

_From that night onward, she read a couple more lines from the book. Sometimes I'd read a couple lines from a book I'd brought along from my own collection. And each night, as I settled down into her broken-down lounge chair, on her broken-down balcony, underneath her useless second-hand blanket, I asked myself: How many ties would be enough?_

_**xx**_

I didn't want to leave that question to chance.

Her bloodscent was just as overpowering as the first time I'd caught it; burning through me, egging me on to do what came naturally. Causing me to relive the first fantasy that replayed in my head again and again like a greatest hits record:

_Her body writhing below me as I latched on murderously to her neck. My eyes rolling back, enraptured, as her blood pulsed in spurts down my throat. My jaw still moving, attempting to get more, even after her eyes were glassy and lifeless and I knew she was sucked dry_.

The longer I was away from her, the stronger the fragrance hit me when we reunited. For every tie we established in our late night talk sessions, an image of dying Bella severed two or three. If she only knew what an imposter I was, the whole time I sat in her bedroom with a genteel smile on my face.

But she didn't. And I wanted to fix the situation before she ever found out.

At night, I tried to give more than I was comfortable with giving. I let her tease me more than I was used to, and I teased back as good as she gave. I shared things with her that I normally guarded from others. Like how piano and books had long been my solace, because they were great company for a party of one. And I was rewarded each time I gave a little more. Because every time I shared something with Bella, she shared something back. Sometimes the sharing was heavy-hearted: How so many of her best memories with her mother were underneath covers, way past her bedtime, as they giggled over Mr. Darcy's uptight ways. Or Mr. Knightley's constant school marming of Emma.

It was her mother, I finally learned, who had been the hopeless romantic afterall. Bella's ties to her mother were deeply rooted in books of a certain persuasion. Books that her mother had gifted her throughout the years and now sat in her bookshelf.

Sometimes the sharing was silly: how she thought Darcy owned Rochester, but that Rochester was preferable to Heathcliff.

"Heathcliff's the guy you meet at a club with serial killer eyes, but really great hair, so you makeout with him. But you give him a fake number at the end of the night, as well as a fake name at the beginning."

I grimaced on cue. "You'd make out with a guy who looked like a serial killer, just because he had great hair?"

She sighed, rolling her eyes in response, like I was always a step or two behind her. Which I always felt I was.

"Rochester's more presentable. He's not as hot and mysterious as Heathcliff, but he's more steady and reliable in terms of taking you out on a proper date and going home to meet your dad."

"Yeah, when he's not busy locking up his first wife in the attic," I added. That made her laugh louder than anything I'd ever said.

"Well, when you put it that way, maybe presentable is overrated. Maybe I should just give Heathcliff my real number and call it a day." The lingering smile that accompanied her declaration only made me smile back.

Bella, always speaking in inneundos. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

During the day when I wasn't with her, I tried to keep the ties we were forming intact. The more I sank into the concentrated scent of her pillow, the more desensitized I became. The more desensitized I became, the easier it was to push past those destructive impulses to harm her altogether. I wanted the new memories of our fledgling friendship to take centerstage now.

Funny, that this was what I was doing when Carlisle walked in and jumped to a different conclusion.

_Exactly what makes you friends? Wouldn't she be surprised if she knew her friend was spending hours on end in his bedroom, encasing himself in her scent?_

"She wouldn't be surprised, Carlisle. And that's why we're friends. She'd turn it into a punchline." His eyes grew wider with the gravity of my words.

_She knows...he's told her...some human girl is walking around town everyday, knowing everything..._

_"_She's not just any human girl, " I interjected. "She's different, looks at everything in ways I can't even fathom half the time. But I trust her, as much as anyone in this family. Even more so, with certain family members." Rose's petulant face fluttered through my head.

"You've bonded with her," he said in a low, foreboding voice.

I couldn't help but laugh at the notion. What we had was at best an awkward friendship.

"You've bonded yourself...to a _human_."

"If you want to call friendship a bond, so be it. But that's all it is."

He took a deep breath before responding.

_"_That's not all it is, if you're being honest. You know we bond differently than they do. For us, it is unbinding and unchanging. Humans are much more fleeting with their attachments. Everything about them is fleeting."

My fixed glare gave him pause to continue. The glare was partly due to the patronizing tone he was taking with me, and partly due to the fact "fleeting" was code for "that wool sweater you're wearing will outlive this girl's fancies _and_ life expectancy." The glare softened though as I imagined Bella hearing his words. She'd probably accuse him of likening her to a gerbil or a mosquito or a ---

"Focus, Edward."

I shook my head, trying to get that scent out of my head long enough to end this conversation. Carlisle had other plans though.

"For you to attach yourself to something fleeting is dangerous. You know this. At the very least, it's masochistic. At the very worst, it's suicidal. Especially for you and your situation."

Situation. More codewords. Leave it to Carlisle to politely dance around the reality that everyone else in the family thought regularly: I was a freak among freaks. I was more "special" than all of them, in all the wrong ways.

His inferences were correct, of course. Time was a different creature for our kind. A year felt like a day, a century like a year. Everything changes and flees quickly around us, while we stayed the same. A mate was the one constant in our existence. Take that one constant away, and everything was put into a tailspin.

"Of course I know this. But you don't understand, she calls me her friend. That is what we have, nothing more. Friendship."

"Which is exactly my point," he cut in, and Carlisle never cut in. "What she's calling friendship is something entirely different from what you're feeling."

"You don't know that, Carlisle. You're jumping to conclusions."

Taking in my dismissive tone, he picked his words and thoughts carefully before proceeding. "You've only experienced certain feelings through others' thoughts and actions. Second hand, not directly. Humans use the term "friend" casually. They'll use it equally for the mailman and their dearest confidante. We use the term solemnly. I can tell you right now that she isn't spending hours breathing in your scent and fixating all day long the way you are with her. And if she had any clue that you were, she'd take a restraining order out on you. Your behavior would look less like a friend and more like a stalker, to a human girl. Would she make a punchline out of this too?"

If he intended for a direct hit, he was successful with marksman skill. Shame washed over me; resentment too, at his words. Everything he was saying was true. I didn't have much experience beyond feelings for our family. And our kind didn't bother with casual connections the way humans did. We moved in couplings mostly, or small groups that were bound together for survival's sake. And yet, he made me feel so small in that moment, pathetic and groveling for the attention of a flighty human girl with the lifespan of a gnat.

But Bella wasn't any normal human girl, let alone a gnat.

"You don't know her. You don't know anything about her or what she would do or think. She knows the very worst about me, and still she's kind to me. Welcomes me every evening at her window. Even worries about me when I have nowhere to go at night."

Carlisle's eyes narrowed as his thinking sharpened in its resolve.

"If she's seen the very worst of you, Edward, who's to say her actions aren't motivated by fear, then? What is she suppossed to say to her natural predator if he's coming to her bedroom nightly? Go away?"

I tried to interrupt him, but he continued, determined to have his say.

"Who's to say you're being completely honest with your motivations as well? I don't need to tell you what your behavior resembles. That by the time I found you holding onto a momento like this last time, it was too late. I don't want to be too late again, Edward. I care too much to see you fall like that again."

I groaned out of frustration. All of Carlisle's sentiments were more perceptive than I cared to admit, and completely well-intentioned. But they were also dismissive of the little refuge that I'd found with Bella, that had given me something to look forward to finally.

"You just don't understand what's between us, Carlisle. What we've been through together. That's all I can say."

"I don't understand everything, you're right. But if you were a real friend, you'd put some distance between each other. Your behavior is too compulsive and unpredictable right now, and I can't help but wonder if you're confusing certain instincts with feelings of attachment. A good friend would put her interests first before his desires."

I jumped up from the bed, intent on walking away. But it didn't stop him from talking.

"I know this is new and exciting for you right now. And I know how it can be a struggle to stay in our family at times alone--"

Alice. Alice had said something similar just weeks earlier, and the identical sense of pity that laced each word made me crack up.

"Why is every apology for having me be the odd man out really a disclaimer about how I shouldn't want anything outside of the family? Why can't I have this, even if it is fleeting? What's so bad about me wanting something, just for myself, for once?"

Carlisle's face fell, his mind racing with pained and guilt-ridden thoughts. Even with my mother's blessing, he blamed himself for how things had turned out. But he quickly stiffened, steeling himself up for the following words:

"It's bad for the same reason my father did what he did when he found out I'd named one of the pigs on our farm, and gave it extra food. He served him up for dinner the next evening, so I'd always remember the difference between livestock and pets. So I'd never forget what I should get attached to, and what I shouldn't."

Sorrow flooded through me as his words sunk in. "You think of her as a chicken. Or a mouse," I choked out in bitter laughter, echoing the very words and sentiments Bella used on me that first night.

Without another word, I slipped through my window and out towards the dense forest behind our house. The car would be left behind tonight. I darted through the woods, running parallel with the highway. And I didn't stop until I got to Port Angeles. At that very moment, Bella was with her father at their weekly couseling session. It was yet another boundary that Bella had put up for me:

"No following me to Port Angeles. No eavesdropping either. I need to do this for my dad and I'll feel self-conscious if you listen in."

Bella was under the impression that her father wanted the counseling for both of them. His thoughts told otherwise, as he constantly listed all the things that Bella had been doing that struck him as strange:

_Making up for lost time with me. _

_Spoiling me._

_Going from "Charlie" to "Dad" to "Daddy."_

_Calling me daily, always reminding me of all our sweetest memories together._

_Giving away sentimental possessions to friends like Seth. _

_Even trying to set me with Sue. _

_She's getting things in order...._

His line of work, with past cases to back him up, informed him that something was amiss. That she was tying up loose ends in ways no nineteen year old girl should. He wondered if she was suicidal, but his mind refused to go there for more than a brief moment. He settled on depression, guilt over her mother, and the withdrawal that comes about as a consequence. Her friends seemed to support this argument, he found out, when he questioned them. Almost unanimously, they told him of the growing distance between them and Bella lately. Emily, in particular, mentioned how Bella would retreat to her bedroom nightly, and never come back out. Charlie hoped a counselor could help Bella reclaim the life she had carved out for herself before tragedy struck. But he still worried he wasn't doing enough, as any good father would...

My mind quickly shot forth an image of an equally worried man in my bedroom still. Worried that I was slipping away in ways I couldn't come back from. But I extinguished it as quickly as I conjured it up.

I found Bella's scent concentrating in a business office parking lot, her car sticking out like a red, rusty eye sore. The elevator took me up three floors before her fragrance beckoned me to get off. The soft voices from suite 204 were lingering now in my direction, too inviting to ignore:

"Bella, that's actually a very common occurrence with survivor's guilt. To feel as if what happened to another should have happened to you instead. Everything you're describing is a very natural reaction to the trauma you've been through."

Bella didn't answer right away, her weeping being her only response. Finally she spoke in soft, firm tones:

"What I'm experiencing, it's not just guilt. Or some mind trick I'm playing on myself. It's more real than that. I know the difference."

Charlie's mind was about to explode, full of silent self-berating:

_It was too early to bring this up. Now she's never going to open up to me again..._

"I'm NOT suicidal though. I'm not. I need my dad to know that no matter what happens, I would never hurt myself. I'd never put him through what I'm going through right now." She was pleading for the counselor to believe her, so that he could convince Charlie in turn. The responding voice was warm and caring, just like his inner thoughts.

"I know you're not suicidal, Bella. But sometimes survivor's guilt manifests in tricky ways. Thinking that fate is coming after you to settle some score, like you described? That your time was up before, and will be up sooner than later? That can be one way of giving up control in your life, and allowing other forces to decide things for you. Does that make sense?"

Bella answered yes quietly.

"If you think you're doomed, you may put yourself in dangerous situations that you might otherwise not."

_Like fraternizing with your almost-killer..._

"What we need for you to think about is reconnecting with the active life you had before the accident. Reconnecting with your friends, and family, and the things that made you passionate and happy. The more you reconnect with those things, the more grounded and in control you will feel in your life..."

I turned around and walked out of the building, not listening to another word. Within minutes I was deep inside the woods again, where I would stay until dawn break. There would be no knocking on Bella's window tonight.

Reconnections. Another way of saying establishing ties.

Something I had been working so hard on all these weeks. Trying to strengthen the ones I'd made with Bella. Trying to rethread the ones I'd severed every time I envisioned harming her - with pleasure. Trying to strengthen my resolve around her, so those visions didn't show up in the first place.

All this work to keep what fledgling relationship we had alive, and nurture it. And it had never occurred to me that establishing our ties was coming at an expense of other connections in her life.

I'd justified my nightly visits because I felt useful to her. She was more safe and slept better under my watch. There were less tears and nightmares just in the last week. And I benefitted even more. Her offer of simple friendship, the only offer I'd received outside of my family in almost a century, seemed wrong. Unnatural. Yet it had a power over me that was overwhelming. The more Bella ignored the monster and spoke directly to the seventeen-year-old boy that had long retreated, the more that boy insisted on coming out.

The price for this awakening? The monopoly I had on Bella's life now.

I'd never even asked her if she wanted my company every night; I just assumed she did, the way I wanted hers. But she had other friends, as Carlisle reminded me earlier. Family. Rochesters as well, I imagined. "Steady and reliable" boys who could take her out on proper dates and taken home to meet the Chief.

My head sagged at the reality that lay before me: a portrait of a groveling monster pretending to be a real boy for a real, live girl. Tapping on her window nightly, like an eager, lovestruck teenager - a century too late.

Bella had come face to face with death just months earlier. It gave her new sight, made her see things like monsters and the fleeting nature of mortality. It kept her out on the outskirts of life. It was no stretch to imagine her staying so close to death out of loyalty to her mother. It was how she'd stayed connected to her memory this whole time. But now her father and friends wanted her back. And I was keeping a firm hold on her, making sure she stayed right on the fringes of mortality with me.

Was I just another way Bella was giving up on life?

Carlisle's interrogation about my motivations and the nature of our friendship started to weight heavily on me.

Was "Death" really after her? Or was that a convenient excuse for me to stay close to her? Had I been putting her interests first this whole time, as a true friend would - or only mine?

**xx**

"Edward!"

She peered through the window from her bed, taking in my dark form, before jumping out of bed. The window lifted seconds later. "Where were you yesterday? I thought something happened to you!"

I couldn't help but smile at her scolding reaction. "Uh, I'm at the top of the food chain. Nothing ever happens to me. And I came by late last night, but you were safe and sound in bed already."

She shrugged her shoulders. "I didn't know where you were though. You could have called or left a note."

"I'm sorry, Bella."

I stared at her for a moment, committing every last detail surrounding her to long-term memory. Her pj bottoms with the stretched-out elastic waistband and the packets of sand lined up neatly from left to right on the dresser, starting with "Rosarita Beach, Mexico." I even inhaled that horrible coconut-lime air freshener she insisted on using in her room.

"Are you coming in?"

I shook my head.

"How about you come out instead? Bring your shoes and a jacket."

She obeyed me without another word, which delighted and irritated me, all at the same time.

"Do you mind if we take my car for part of the trek? I want to show you something, and you'll be more comfortable driving for part of it."

She nodded, her eyes conveying something I couldn't quite grasp.

I exhaled slowly and concentrated as her fragrance took over my car with her arrival.

Tonight was the night, I reminded myself. Tonight I would get through the whole evening without one fantasy that involved harming her. Tonight had to be done right.

"Where are we going," she asked, yawning while she inquired. It was almost midnight, and she should have been asleep already.

"It's a surprise, sleep while you can and I'll wake you up when we get there."

**xx**

"Bella?" I nudged her gently until she stirred herself awake. She looked around her surroundings, disoriented.

"Where are we?"

"Oregon." I tried to keep a straight face, but couldn't once she dropped her jaw.

"Oregon? How the hell did you make it to Oregon so fast?"

Did she even have to ask at this point?

I cursed the full moon for shining so brightly everywhere - I was hoping a veil of darkness would make it easier for what we were about to do.

"We need to hike to get to where I want us; but since it's so bright out, you have to promise me you'll close your eyes until I tell you to open them."

A mischievous smile spread across her face. "Of course."

Liar.

I knelt down, my back facing her. "Climb onto my back, and hold on tight."

She began to question why she had to hold on tight when I sped off at full speed. Her words were reduced to squeals as her hands clasped around my neck.

"You closing your eyes?"

"Yesssss...." Her voice was shakey as she bounced side to side on my back like a rag doll.

I sped through long-abandoned trails; upward, past pockets of trees on both sides of me. Until I ground to a halt.

"Can I look now?" Bella's voice was invigorated. I was afraid she'd get nauseous during the ride, but she was perfectly fine.

"NO. Not until I say so."

With that, I tightened my piggyback hold on her, and took one step off the ledge--

"Ohmywhatthehellareyouohgod--STOP!"

But it was too late, my feet were already running down the steep, brush-laden cliff, at an almost perfect ninety-degree angle.

"Close your eyes!"

She was still screaming into my ear, all the evidence I needed to know her eyes were wide-opened. But then the screams quieted into squeals, and her arms and legs wrapped tighter around me in excitement. By the time we reached the sandy ground, she was laughing.

"Do that again," she yelled out, most likely showing off.

"Be careful what you wish for, Bella."

Her response was so soft, I wasn't sure if it was for my ears to hear: "Don't I know it."

Bella's mood changed abruptly, her limbs falling to my sides in defeat. Of what defeat? I had no idea. She was so frustrating at times, how quickly her moods could change.

"Do you want me to put you down now," I asked. "Are you okay?"

She shook her head in response, the ends of her hair flapping against me. I didn't know if she was answering the former or the latter question.

"Just run again. Run up and down this beach as fast you can." She held me closer to her, as orange-tinged moon rays shone down on the glassy ocean and powdered sand before us.

In no time she was laughing once more, especially when I sprinted ankle deep into the receding ocean tides. The wind beat against us hard, but she showed no signs of discomfort. Only elation, her giggles rushing into my ears and her legs kicking around like a child hopped up on too much frosting.

"Again," she yelled out when I slowed down.

"You sound like a three year old tyrant right now, you know that?" Keeping in theme, she spurred her heels into my side.

"Don't talk, Pony. Just gallop." Bella's words were sliced up in jumbles though, due to chattering teeth. I looked down on her exposed legs that rested around my hipbones - they were covered in goosebumps and icy ocean droplets.

I'd forgotten to keep her fragile body temperature in mind during the last several minutes.

"Oh, Bella." My arms swung her around to my chest and cradled her securely as I moved away from the water. There was a small cove nearby that offered refuge from the brisk winds. "You're freezing and your pants are soaking. Why didn't you tell me I was getting you wet when I was running..."

"I didn't really feel it at the time," she said with a sheepish grin.

My inner doctor, two med-school degrees over, came into play without a second thought. I silently stripped off her wet pajama bottoms and was about to cover them with my jacket when she grabbed a firm hold of my arm.

I wasn't prepared for the look on her face when my eyes met hers. Those same brown eyes, so full of mischief when housed in the comfort of their bedroom, were now searching mine with an intensity I'd never seen before. She slowly shoved my jacket to the side, leaving her bare legs exposed.

"Do you see me as a mouse?"

It was our long-running gag all these weeks. She as a pet, me as a monster. But this time around, her voice wasn't bathed in sarcasm. She was asking me how I truly saw her.

I put her jacket back on top of her legs carefully. "I don't normally go through all this effort for a mouse."

She didn't acknowledge my first attempt at answering, waiting for a more adequate reply.

"I see a very beautiful girl. Who can wear her hair slick and straightened or like a haystack--"

I ruffled her hair slightly with my hand --

"and she still looks lovely."

I expected my answer to garner a smile, or a quick joke to lighten the mood. But it only made her eyes close while she let out a drawn breath. Panic set into me, as the situation quickly turned in another direction that I wasn't understanding. I tried to get back to my agenda.

"That's why I brought you here, you know. A pretty ocean view for a pretty girl."

In all her Oregon tourist pictures, I'd noticed that this beach was missing. The jagged cliffs and the islets that sprinkled just past the seashore made for an otherworldly oceanic view.

"I know you like beaches, and like to vacation by them. I wanted you to add this one to your collection..." I scooped up some sand, and let it slide down into her open palm. " A collection I hope that grows to be very large for you over the years."

Tonight was about being a good friend. But I allowed myself one selfish gesture. I was intent on making this one night so special, I would always be a part of her beloved sand collection. And maybe even a part of her beloved recollections, alongside giggling with her mother in bed, and standing by giant thermostats with her father.

She shot me a questioning glance, and it was now or never for me to get to the point of the field trip tonight.

"Bella, can I ask something of you?"

"Anything, Edward. Anything at all." Her words came out like a solemn vow, as if she already understood the significance of my favor.

"I don't want you to worry about death coming after you anymore. I promise you, as long as I'm existing, I will never let it near you. Not before it's your right time, many years from now."

Her eyes narrowed. "Why does this sound like a good-bye?"

I ignored her inquiry. "And in return, you have to promise me you'll live your life. For you and your mother's memory. And maybe even a little bit for me, if you ever need any more motivation."

"This _is_ a good-bye. " She jumped up onto her knees, my jacket sliding down her thighs and onto the sand. "You were listening in on the counseling session. I knew it! The minute the counselor started talking about how I needed to get my old life back, I worried for a moment you'd overheard. And when you didn't show up last night, God, I knew you a had..."

"Everything he said was true, though, Bella."

"No, it's not. How can I go back to my old life after everything that's happened? And you even said death was all around me, you agreed with me before. He's saying I'm making it all up in my head."

I tried to word this carefully: "Death is all around you because you are mortal, it's around everything living on this planet. But the counselor was right that you don't need to assist it by being careless and apathetic about living. You act as if you've already lost the fight. And it's just not true, Bella. You need to go back to where you were before all this happened, and not let death take away anymore from you. You need to get back to living your life, with your family and friends..."

"But you're saying good-bye to me," Her voice was uneven now as tears threatened to fall. "You're my friend too."

When I'd imagined this conversation earlier, it had always played out the same. Bella would listen and agree with my reasoning. She would even be a little relieved that I was letting go. But her reaction was throwing me off, making me forget what my reasoning was in the first place.

"Bella, I'll always be your friend. But I can only be a good friend in certain ways. I can protect you from a safe distance. But I can't be a good friend in more normal ways, in ways your old friends can."

Her lips twisted in anger, as she mauevered herself so that we were face to face. As she rested her hands on my thighs, I gasped involuntarily. She was too close to me, and the wind was blazing a path up my nostrils with her scent.

"How can you say you're not a good friend? How hard it is it for my roommate or a co-worker to be my friend? Not hard at all. But it's hard for you. You don't tell me, but I see you struggle. And still you come back every night, and keep me company, and make sure I'm okay. That's the best kind of friend."

A part of me wanted to agree with her, and head back to the refuge of our bedroom once more. The other part reminded me there was no going back.

"But being the best kind of friend means putting you first. And getting you back to where you are living once again, and doing things girls your age do. That doesn't include what we do together, and you hanging out with a boy who hasn't lived in more years than your grandmother's seen."

Her tears were flowing now, that concentrated fragrance burning through my throat and lungs. I tried to stop breathing, but the smell was already messing with my thoughts. I could feel myself losing control.

"I'm not using you like a crutch, Edward. I recognized something in you way before you ever asked me out. You were handsome of course, but you were marked, just like I was. "

I stared at her in confusion.

"I could tell you've been to death and back, just like me. It's written all over your face. Just like it's written all over mine. And I know you crave me in ways that aren't safe. But what if it was nature's way of nudging you my way? Making you take notice, when you wouldn't have otherwise? What if that was the only way to get you to recognize me back?"

I closed my eyes, trying to regroup. Everything she said made too much sense, and yet it seemed illogical. That my very nature had been some sort of twisted matchmaker for us, when it seemed to be tearing us apart.

"That sounds lovely, Bella. But I don't think it's the case."

Her hands grabbed harder onto my knees now, as she leaned into me closer. I held my breath:

"All I know Edward, is that since you've been coming around, I look both ways when I cross the street. And I use my turn signals. And don't tell Death to fuck off like I used to constantly, trying to provoke him into action. And I don't look just both ways, but up and all around me now. Because I need to make it home in one piece since you promised to read me Shakespeare in the Three Stooges' voices that night. And Wuthering Heights with Fran Drescher as Katherine the next."

Her hands raised up, cautiously cradling my cheeks, warm and soft and maddening in their offering.

"You give me something to fight for, now."

It was almost too much to bear. Rage sprinted through me, realizing that she found the exact words I secretly desired to hear most. That I was wanted, and needed, and maybe even good for her, the way she was good for me.

"So please, Edward," she whispered, "Please don't go."

Her full lips pressed against my forehead, causing her neck to graze my lips.

It was like lighting a fuse. I clenched my teeth and hands as my sight blinded and my hearing deafened while the same vile fantasy that had been dogging me from the beginning took over all my senses:

_Her body writhing below me as I latched on to her neck. My eyes rolling back, enraptured, as I opened her legs and pushed into and pulsed inside her...._

My eyes flew open in a panic, as the fantasy took on a new, lecherously predatory turn. A turn that shocked me in ways the old fantasy hadn't even.

___My hips still moving, attempting to have more, even after her eyes were glassy and I knew she milked me dry_.

I pushed her off me instantly, a savage howl tearing through the silence as I leapt to my feet and ran as far and fast away from her as I could. I collapsed onto the sand once the distance was safe enough - both for her and me.

Lies. All her sweet thoughts were beautiful, unknowing lies that only moments earlier felt like truths. My body, shaking and hard and pained, told a different story. I was a danger to her in ways I'd never even imagined.

"Edward," her hoarse voice whispered out into the darkness from down below. "Edward, I'm sorry....."

**xxx**

_"Why are you so far away?" she said  
"Why won't you ever know that I'm in love with you?"_

_-- "Just Like Heaven"_


	8. Wasting Time In the Waiting Line

**Chapter 8: Wasting Time in the Waiting Line**

**a/n: **Thanks for all the lovely reviews! Thanks to Ms. Wallbanger and Angel a month back for rec'ing this story too! To those who reviewed: I got about 20 review replies in when the stupid server kept saying I couldn't reply to the rest of reviews from my last update. So, let me just say thanks to everyone who reviewed, and I'll include a big fat teaser in my review replies this chapter to make up for it.

**a/n: **The title and lyrical quote comes from Zero 7's "Waiting In Line." It's on my profile at the top.

**a/n:** Okay, two quotes for this chapter:

**p. 273 from Twilight: "As if I needed another reason to kill you." We both flinched as the word slipped out....."I fought with Rosalie, Emmett and Jasper when they suggested that now was the time[to kill Bella]....the worst fight we've ever had. Carlisle sided with me, and Alice....Esme told me to do whatever I had to do in order to stay." **(For all the talk about Esme being a boring Betty Crocker, bitch was ready to let Edward kill Bella if it meant her baby boy would stay! I always loved this quote, cause Esme...Esme will cut you if she needs to!)

**p.277 from Eclipse: Edward: "I wasn't looking for love[at the end of his human life]- no, I was far too eager to be a soldlier for that; I thought of nothing but the idealized glory of war ..."**

**xxxx**

_From Chapter 7:_

_Her hands raised up, cautiously cradling my cheeks, warm and soft and maddening in their offering._

_"You give me something to fight for, now."_

_It was almost too much to bear. Rage sprinted through me, realizing that she found the exact words I secretly desired to hear most. That I was wanted, and needed, and maybe even good for her, the way she was good for me._

_"So please, Edward," she whispered, "Please don't go."_

_Her full lips pressed against my forehead, causing her neck to graze my lips._

_It was like lighting a fuse. I clenched my teeth and hands as my sight blinded and my hearing deafened while the same vile fantasy that had been dogging me from the beginning took over all my senses:_

_Her body writhing below me as I latched on to her neck. My eyes rolling back, enraptured, as I opened her legs and pushed into and pulsed inside her...._

_My eyes flew open in a panic, as the fantasy took on a new, lecherous turn. A turn that shocked me in ways the old fantasy hadn't even._

___My hips still moving, attempting to have more, even after her eyes were glassy and I knew she milked me dry_.

_I pushed her off me instantly, a savage howl tearing through the silence as I leapt to my feet and ran as far and fast away from her as I could. I collapsed onto the sand once the distance was safe enough - both for her and me._

_Lies. All her sweet thoughts were beautiful, unknowing lies that only moments earlier felt like truths. My body, shaking and hard and pained, told a different story. I was a danger to her in ways I'd never even imagined._

_"Edward," her hoarse voice whispered out into the darkness from down below. "Edward, I'm sorry....."_

**xxx**

I picked up The Little Prince and plopped down onto my bed. He was staring out into the forest, his mind already drifting.

"I know you need to go, but you can't leave before our circle time. I won't read too long a passage."

Edward nodded silently, as he leaned against my window pane from the patio side. He no longer stepped inside my bedroom.

Probably out of fear that I'd molest him again. Drumsticks making flirty passes can make you extra cautious like that:

_**"What must I do to tame you Fox," asked the Little Prince.**_

_**"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you must sit down at a little distance from me - like that - in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing...**_

_**But you will sit closer to me, everyday.."**_

That was what we'd been doing until I messed it all up. Each night, I kept us talking just a little bit longer than the night before. He pretended not to notice. And I pretended not to notice that each week, he moved from the porch, to straddling my window pane, to retiring to the rocking chair beside my bed when we talked.

The key was to close the distance gradually; with such small steps, there was no need to even acknowledge the fact we were making our way towards one another.

But then he did something big.

Whisked me away on his back to one of the prettiest places on earth, I was sure of it. I took it as a silent declaration, and it was. Just not the new beginning I'd imagined. It was a sentimental good-bye for my own good.

My mind raced. Effective good-byes needed to be ripped off like a band-aid. But Edward, he was peeling it away so lovingly, how could I possibly let go now?

So I answered back big. With my hands and knees and lips knotting around and against him, while pleading our case like a frustrated D.A. It was too much. He ran away before I even processed that my lips were pressed against his cool, polished skin. With that one small gesture, I'd put him in a corner. He couldn't pretend _not_ to notice what was so glaring in that soft moonlight: I wanted him in ways that he didn't want me.

Taming was a very complicated business. The slightest misstep, the smallest movement made too suddenly, could throw you back to square one all over again.

**xx**

Edward's fixed stare shook me out of my thoughts. He was looking for the appropriate moment to excuse himself, like he did every evening now. Nights no longer ended with me peeking out from underneath my covers, watching him fall asleep outside on my lounge chair along with me. Now he left and didn't return until long after I'd been sleeping. Hunting, he explained. He needed to hunt more now.

I jumped out of bed and approached him.

"Edward?"

"Yes?" He held his breath as I stationed myself before him.

"Are you really hunting every night?"

He looked at me like I was speaking a different language. He wasn't accustomed to not knowing where a conversation was leading, given his abilities. With me, sometimes the lack of anticipation left him invigorated. Right now? He looked wary and defensive.

"Of course."

"Because if you don't want to hang out as much anymore, you can just say so. The porch can't be too comfy, and I know my company is limited..."

His eyes flickered in recognition of where this was going. "NO, Bella, that's not it at all. I need to hunt more now, if I'm going to be near you still."

He saw the suspicion in my eyes. I needed a better answer.

"That night on the beach. I wasn't being careful. My sister, she keeps saying to remember who I am, not what I am. And it sounds fine for a greeting card. But the truth of the matter is, if I focus only on _who_ I am, _what_ I am can sneak up from behind me without warning. And I can't be careless like that around you again. Hunting more, that makes it easier to be around you."

**xx**

That night at the beach....

It started out magical and sweet. He wanted to do something for me that was completely unnecessary. Up until then, so much of our relationship had been about necessities. I needed to be protected. He needed to right his wrong, and protecting the very thing he'd sought out to destroy himself seemed like a no-brainer. Even as we talked and joked inside the confines of my room, there was an undercurrent of necessity under the whimsy. He took the business of keeping me safe seriously.

Piggy backing me down a cliff was the opposite of keeping me safe and sheltered though. It was indulgent and a little dangerous, as if he were a teenaged boy showing off what he could do.

But then it became clear what was going on: he was giving himself one night. One night to enjoy whatever this was between us, and no more. He held me close against his back, with none of the usual reserve. Told me I was pretty, beautiful too. And he looked me square in the eye when he said it, with a mischievous smile in place.

It was all the encouragement I needed to move forward with a kiss that ended up being unwelcomed.

I called out to him in the dark, and apologized. He didn't answer back, wherever he scurried off to.

Bitter, rejected tears fell down; and for a moment, I entertained the thought of trying to get home on my own. It was a simple kiss on his forehead, it wasn't like I shoved my tongue down his throat. And yet it was enough to make a man stronger than Superman hightail it in the opposite direction.

Stupid, stupid chicken.

But the long, drawn out silence calmed me down. And soon enough, I just wanted him to come sit next to me and tell me everything was still okay between us. So I did the only thing I ever did with him when all else failed. I went back to baby steps. Baby steps that didn't make us have to think too hard about what we were doing.

"This is more beautiful than any other beach I've been to, you're right," I said out loud, knowing he heard me. I laid back down on the sand, and covered up my legs with his jacket. God forbid he catch a glimpse of my bare thigh and dash off into the water until he hit China. "This will always be my most favorite beach, no matter what."

I was met with silence. No movement either.

"I wish I could take you to Hawaii though, I think you'd like it. Rugged coastlines just like this, but tropical. Flowers by the roadside, the ocean warmer than bath water."

I heard a soft movement above me. He was slowly coming down from one of the cliffs.

"And if I could, I'd show you one particular beach, where turtles hang out in the bay, as big as my body. And you wouldn't have to hold me or piggy back me in the water, Edward. 'Cause the ocean's so warm and salty, I'd float to the top and lie on my back without any help. And you could lie right next to me, enjoying the sun on our faces and arms. Because it's secluded and away from people, just the way you like it. You and me and turtles and salty ocean water that would keep us afloat without so much effort on either of our parts."

So much effort...

The soft thuds I heard stopped to the side of me, and I forced myself not to look. He laid down beside me on his back too.

"I'm sorry, Bella. You were too close. And I...it was too much."

"You don't have to explain. I get it. I'm sorry too."

Silence drifted for several minutes before he spoke again. "There really were turtles with shells as big as you?"

He was trying to meet me halfway, God bless him.

"Yeah, it took everything in my power not to laso the little fuckers and ride them like a sea pony. I think it's a felony or something though."

"You and lasooing ponies," Edward with a sad laugh.

As well as pretty boys with nowhere to go and no desire to touch me the way I wanted.

Edward took me home in silence. He thought I was still sleeping when he laid me back down on my bed. I tightened my hold on his shirt to let him know I wasn't.

"Please don't go. Come back tonight. And not just from a distance. Come to my window."

"We'll see."

That's all I got out of him before he left for the day. No promises either way.

**xx**

Edward meant to leave me alone from then on. He didn't come to my window at night. There were no signs of him during the afternoon or at my job. But I knew he was there.

I bucked up the first week, telling myself I could handle it. But as the days wore on, I collected more and more thoughts that required his attention. I started tipping my head down while walking to my car or to work. And in a voice barely above a whisper that no one else would hear, save it for the boy with bionic hearing, I'd whisper:

"If we still read together, I'd make you read me _Emma_, with Snoop Doggy Dogg as Mr. Knightly. "

Or..

"A co-worker told me I was losing too much weight and I was starting to get chicken legs today. And she didn't understand why that left me hysterical. Even humans see me as a drumstick."

Or..

"You know when the fox told the Little Prince that when he tamed him, even the wheat fields would remind the fox of him and he would find the wheat beautiful? It totally blows because now I actually find Volvos attractive. Thaaaanks."

They were all met with silence.

One day, I didn't try to be clever or entertaining. I simply bowed my head as if in prayer and said in the smallest whisper of all:

"I miss you."

That night, he wandered back onto my porch again. He didn't say a word, and he didn't need to. I simply went to my closet and got out his blanket. Edward came back every night afterward, but something had changed between us. The easy camaraderie we'd established was gone now.

**xx**

My mind drifted back to the present. To my bedroom, and the boy desperately waiting for me to settle down so he could leave.

"I really do need to hunt. I'll be back soon enough, I promise." Soon enough became less soon each night, though I pretended not to notice.

Something needed to be said about what had happened that night.

"Edward, if I could take back what I did to you that night, I would. I just want things to go back to normal with us..."

He stared at me in confusion: "What did you do?"

Amazing. I had to actually spell it out now? "The stupid little kiss. I didn't mean anything by it, I just.."

His face clouded with my words, stopping me dead in my tracks. I tried to go a different route. "Can't we just go back to how we were before? That's all I want-"

"That's all you want," he repeated, his eyes dead as he stared back at me. "I think it's too late to go back."

His reactions were putting me in a tailspin, I didn't understand their meaning.

"Why is it too late?" Tears started pooling now, with a couple trickling down my face like traitors.

Edward's face twisted in frustration. "I don't know what to do when you cry," Edward confessed. "And the scent, when they come off you fresh like that..." He stopped before he could finish the sentence, avoiding my eyes by staring out into the forest again.

God, I felt like I was guilting him into staying longer. I wiped the tears away before getting back into bed.

"I'm just tired. I need some sleep. We can talk more tomorrow."

He apologized once more before closing my window and disappearing into the night.

And I finally realized what he was doing this whole time: he was still peeling off that good-bye band aid, just slow enough so that neither one of us would feel it until it was over and done with.

**xxx**

Edward was watching yet another crappy movie next door as I finished up my shift. Terry was back in the storeroom taking inventory, while I wiped down the tables in the dining area. The door bell jingled as the last customer made it in before closing time.

She was striking, and I was only looking at her from the corner of my eye. Where others walked, this girl glided across the room, even in spiked heels. I would have normally thought, "what's a gorgeous gal like yourself doing in a dump of a town like this?" But I knew better.

"Are you Bella," she asked in a disconcertingly pleasant voice.

"Yes. Yes, I am, Alice."

Out of all his family members, Alice was the one Edward spoke most fondly of. How did he describe her to me once? If Wonder Woman was shrunken down to action figure size and had better fashion sense, she would be named Alice.

Which sounded great in theory, but intimidating in the flesh. For all her petite beauty, there was undercurrent of ferocity to her.

"So, what's the game plan, Bella?"

That's how she came at me, she didn't even bother with formalities.

"Game plan? Uh, if you mean in regards to your brother, I have no game plan."

She laughed, a fluttery sound that was all caramel and acid. "Oh, one look tells me you're too clever not to have a game plan. And a mission statement for that matter. So what is it? Is this your way of getting back at Daddy? Dating a boy who drives a motorcycle wasn't rebellious enough for you?"

"No daddy issues at all on my side. I take it there's a problem with Edward and I being friends though? The Cullen Cartel--oh, I'm sorry, I mean Family--doesn't approve?"

I never mentioned this to Edward, but by the way he described how his family worked, Edward was a valued member. His mind reading gifts kept the family one step ahead of everyone. But was he a beloved member, or a member that was cherished? The way he wandered alone all the time like a lost orphan made me think not.

Bottom line: I didn't trust the Cullens.

"Friends, huh?" Alice giggled out with a dubious air. "Is that what the kids call it these days?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Alice nodded, looking at me like some kid who got caught with her hand in the monster jar. "Yes you do. Don't play innocent, Bella. Take credit for your work. It's quite the feat to seduce a boy like Edward. He doesn't just fall for a pretty smile and a hair flip like the rest of them."

"Seduc--" I stopped mid-word. I couldn't help but laugh. "You think I've seduced him?" Images of my failed kiss on his forehead flooded through my mind, making me laugh harder.

"Maybe it's humorous to you, but I - we - at home have to live with the consequences of your actions. It's macabre, watching him now. Like a wooden puppet trying to be a real boy. Ripping off his own strings, not realizing they hold him up. But he keeps cutting, all for you. Silly boy."

Anger flushed through me as she turned what we had into something tawdry and cheap. And why did she keep referring to him like he was three?

"Don't talk about him like he's some snot-nosed kid. I know how old he is. He's told me. He's told me everything."

"That's the problem, Bella. He's told you too many things. And he is a boy still, in many ways."

"A century's worth of living hardly makes him a boy," I countered." Give him more credit than that."

Her grin softened with my words. As if she found my words endearing.

"He's not a century old, so much as a very perceptive boy who's lived seventeen year after year, for a century. Two different things, two different experiences. I would have thought you'd pick up on that about him, with all the time you two have spent together."

It was one of the things that made me feel most for him. Pretending to be a schoolboy decade after decade. Hell, pretending to be human decade after decade. Being a freak among vampires, for abstaining from humans. Being a freak among the freak vampires, for hearing voices inside your head. One layer of isolation stacked right on top of the other. He had experienced so little outside the tightly controlled environment between school and home and night jaunts to movie theaters for years now. Everything between us seemed so novel for him, because it was....

"You did pick up on it, didn't you? You see what he's been through." Alice dabbed a stray tear that had fallen down my cheek with her finger, smiling sadly.

What was with my waterworks lately?

But just like that, we went from adversarial to conspiratorial. She saw something in me she trusted.

"Can you keep a secret," she asked in a whisper, even though the place was empty.

"I'll take it to the grave with me." I thought some death humor would lighten the mood; it only made her frown at me, the way Edward would have if he'd overheard.

Alice had come here on her own, without anyone else's knowledge. Her partner Jasper didn't even understand the extent of it, he simply obeyed her request to call Edward away from the theater long enough to be out of hearing distance of our short talk. All I could think in turn was the Cullens sounded more like a mob network than a familial unit.

"Bella, you're in danger."

And in other news, the sky is blue...

"Yeah, see, though, Alice. That's kinda my schtick---"

She cut me off, not letting me deter her. "There are those in my family who want you dead."

Get in line. Take a number while they're at it.

"Those who think Edward's little lustful experiment with you will end very badly. For you, and him, and others, by the time it runs its course. Strike at the heart of the problem, is their thinking, and you stave off disaster. You're at the heart of this, Bella."

Of course.

"Do_ you_ want me dead?" My voice was calm, as if I were asking if she wanted cream in her coffee.

"No, but I'm in the minority."

Lust. Seduction. Betrayal. Murder. Mass murder. I was still trying to process those charges laid at my door in relation to Edward. Of course mass murder should have taken precedence, but then again...

"Lustful experiment?"

She cringed slightly before beginning. "You realize, don't you, that you're his first? So dangerous of both of you..." Her words trailed off as she shook her head out towards the storefront window.

"--His first what?"

His first lover, it turned out. I had to explain and then promise two times over that nothing of the sort had gone down between us.

"No kisses. Not even a lingering hug," I blurted out, the disappointed tone shaming me as it lingered in the air. "I don't think he sees me in that way. I think I'm just a little buddy for him. Or a housecat; his words, not mine."

She stared at me in amusement. "You honestly believe that, don't you? "

The whole family apparently knew otherwise. She told me how I had been the star of his sleepless nightmares for weeks now. He told her as much.

"Half-way in between a hallucination and a vision," she clarified. Bloodlust-fueled visions, barbaric and violent.

"They come on involuntarily, but it's made the usual self-loathing take a spike lately." Her voice was dripping with sarcasm, but it was an act. She looked devastated.

Spiked self-loathing brought on the string cutting. Or pillow immersion, she explained. The constant attempts to stop the fantasies altogether. He worked so hard to be around me, and I hadn't even realized the extent of it.

Then the visions took a detour into a new sexual territory for him. Bloodlust had been replaced by lust in these visions. He hadn't told her as much, but Jasper picked up on it.

"Jasper can't even be in the same room with him right now, too much information about you two. Or wishful thinking, more like."

She added a detail I couldn't explain though: "For some reason, the majority of the time when he's with you, I can't see him, it goes blank. I thought Edward had figured out a crafty way to draw the curtains on my overly nosey mind for your private time together, but I guess not."

I tried to redirect the discussion, out of sheer mortification.

"Is it always like this then, when he _likes_ someone? Does it cause this much chaos everytime in your family?" I could barely choke out the word "like;" it sounded too presumptious, even after what she had revealed.

"Has he told you much about his turning?" I shook my head no.

"Everything about who he was at the time of his turning was magnified. He was a young boy who was sensitive to the others' needs. Carlisle saw that side of him even in his last days in the hospital. When he turned, that trait became magnified - to the point of literally hearing the needs of others. Of reading minds."

My mind's eye took me back to that first night together. Even in the middle of his most murderous rage, he had let me call my father. Fixed my broken necklace. Tried to touch my cheek. How hard that sensitive boy fought to come out, even when he wasn't welcomed.

"That's not the only thing that got magnified, Bella." Alice brought me out of my thoughts. "He was innocent when Carlisle changed him. He'd never had a girlfriend - not even a first kiss."

And hadn't since, it turned out, all this time. On either counts.

"Hungers of ALL kinds are lighted by the same fuse within us, Bella. His bloodlust was the only hunger to light his fuse this whole time. That is, until you."

That piece of information should have frightened me; I'd already seen what hunger looked like on Edward. It wasn't pretty. The fact his hungers could be easily confused was an even scarier prospect. Instead, my vanity took over and I felt elated, complete with a big, dumb grin on my face. Edward wanted me.

Alice didn't seem pleased by visible reaction. She tried to bring me back to reality.

"The important thing is you haven't formed bonds that can't be undone yet. That can't be unbroken. You can still walk away from this in one piece, so can he."

Throughout my life, I'd played by the rules. Been a good daughter, and student and friend. A good girl, who waited her turn in line patiently.

What if for once, I wanted to be a line cutter?

"Alice, can you keep a secret?"

She nodded cautiously.

"What if I understood every argument that says I should stay away from him, inside and out. And yet I still want this? What's so wrong with wanting something for once and reaching out for it?"

Alice shook her head slowly in my direction, accompanied by an arched eyebrow. "You know what's wrong. Eve asked the same "who, little ol' me?" question right before she brought down heaven and earth. Everything could and will go wrong. For your sake and Edward's, please walk away before it's too late."

Alice's phone rang. Jasper, most likely telling her Edward was heading back to the movie theater. She grabbed my hand and held it tightly.

"You're lovely and clever; and under different circumstances, I think we could be great friends. Which is why I hope I never see or hear from you again, Bella."

**xxx**

Alice was right. I knew she was. I pondered over every point she made, nodding in silent agreement. Even as I washed off all traces of the body spray from my neck in the restroom. It was coconut-lime scented, and I wore it at Edward's request. Not because he found it pleasant. It simply masked my natural scent and made it easier to be around me.

But I wasn't in the mood for masks tonight.

Alice was right on every argument. And she "saw" things too. She wouldn't elaborate what she'd seen for fear she'd influence the future instead of predict it. Whatever she saw scared her though. Frightened her enough to come down and try to scare me then plead with me to walk away.

But I "saw" things too. Dreams with my mother placing my hand into Edwards. Yet it wasn't really a dream, deep down I knew that. It was message from someone who couldn't pick up a phone and call me anymore, but would move heaven and earth to reach me, and protect in any way she could.

Alice was right. But Mother knows best.

I undid the bun at the nape of my neck, giving it a quick tussle. Wiped off any residual lip gloss I had on. Unbuttoned the two top buttons on my shirt. Begged Teri to close up alone and I'd make it up to her soon.

The box office was already closed, I had to knock on the door to get someone to open it up. I made it up to the concession worker by buying an Icee, Junior Mints, and a large bucket of popcorn.

Go large on the mystery "butter" oil they slopped on.

There were only three other people in the theater when I walked in. Edward sat to the side in a corner, of course. The pale blue light from the screen projection highlighted his perfect profile, reminding me that I could tussle my hair all day long and it wasn't going to close the beauty gap between us. His head jerked in my direction instantaneously, his expression unreadable as I approached him.

"I got out early. " He nodded silently in response. We settled back into our seats, with him watching the screen intently while I watched him.

He'd suffered through this movie three times in as many weeks, simply to have something to do while I worked. It was a horrible movie, by his own account. A "wacky" romantic comedy he dismissed outright. And yet he watched the movements on the screen with so much focus, even mouthing some of the lines at the appropriate times. Did watching these movies joggle his memory? Not just of his past life, but his human experience? I couldn't help but wonder...

"What?" His tone was slightly defensive. He'd caught me drinking him in with my eyes.

"Nothing." I took a sharp slurp of my drink before holding up a some popcorn.

"Want a piece?"

His eyes narrowed.

"I think I'll pass." He drew his attention back towards the screen, his posture more rigid than before.

Someone was tightly coiled tonight.

"Do you remember eating popcorn?"

He shot me a reproving look, as if the three other strays in the theater even cared what I'd asked him. His words were soft and low, drifting into my ear directly.

"No. I don't remember anything about popcorn." I caught his nose idling near my neck before sitting back in his seat again.

"I've got an idea how to joggle your memory."

He watched as I plopped popcorn into my mouth and chewed slowly. His tongue darted out in time with mine as I licked some off the salt and butter off my lips, yet leaving enough for him to get a taste.

"Okay, I'm coming towards you now," I warned. I inched forward slowly, watching his reaction the whole time.

And then I dragged my lips across his. Technically not a kiss, I rationalized. It was simply a means to an end. I inched away from him, as he began to lick his lips compulsively.

"There, now you can taste it through me."

He leaned forward so quickly, I didn't even see him coming. And just as quickly, his tongue lapped up my bottom lip before he shot back into his seat. With a look of appalling realization of what he just did on his face.

"I take it you liked popcorn at one time." I waited for him to laugh with me. He just kept staring at my lips.

"What about about Junior Mints? Do you remember Junior Mints?" I threw one into my mouth and sucked on it for a moment before chewing. His jaw moved in time with mine, his eyes almost trance-like.

I moved towards him again, this time pushing my lips up against his. Technically a not a kiss either, since I wasn't puckering...

He groaned before pushing away from me, angling himself to the far corner of his chair. His eyes were wild looking, his breath jagged.

"Bella, you can't do things like that."

"Why?"

"It just gets me going. I can't lose control like that."

I asked him how it got him going. He mentioned the bloodscent, of course. For a slight moment, I wondered if I was being delusional. That Alice was wrong and I was making a complete fool of myself again.

Stupid drumstick.

"Is that the only way I get you going?" I couldn't look at him as I asked such a leading question. Instead, I stared down at his hand, absentmindedly brushing my thumb back and forth across this palm.

He didn't answer right away, watching our hands mingle.

"No, Bella, it's not the only way. I'm sorry. Like wanting to hurt you wasn't bad enough."

His voice was all shame and regret; and I couldn't help but laugh, because it was the one thing I wanted to hear most from him.

I waited for him to look up before taking both his hands into mine.

"I'm going to let you in on a little secret I'm sure you're aware of already, Edward: all seventeen year old boys are predatory, and they don't even have your dietary excuses."

He actually smiled. No disconcerted looks at my usually inappropriate comic timing. Just a sweet smile.

My head dipped down to his hand, and I kissed it gently. "You get me going too, you know. In all the right ways. There's no wrong way with you."

His hand tensed, while his breath halted. "I need to go...."

Edward seemed to want to get up, but couldn't. His eyes were shut tight, and his mouth shut tightly.

Alice's words came back to me: _Half-way in between a hallucination and a vision_. He was having another one of his unwanted fantasies.

I threw both hands out onto his shoulders, trying to will him towards me. "Don't go. Stay with me here while this happens to you. And when you come out the other end of it, I'll be waiting, right here."

He froze with my offer.

"Let me, Edward."

A muffled cry rang out into the darkness as his upper body slumped onto mine. I wrapped my arms around him, letting Edward's head cradle into the crook of my neck. His whole body tensed at once, his breathing stopping altogether. He convulsed, and cursed under his breath, with a rough voice that sounded nothing like him. And still I held on, until I knew it was over.

He rested his head on me for several minutes before muffled words vibrated onto my collarbone.

"Oh, Bella." He voice was almost scolding. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because I want to."

He met me halfway this time as I dipped down towards him. He stayed still at first, letting my lips wander along his jawline. His head cocked sharply to the side when my kisses feathered along his neck. Cold hands gripped the sides of my head without warning, making me shiver. The hands retreated just as quickly as they appeared.

"Am I too cold?"

"No, just right," I murmured while taking his hands and putting them back where they'd been.

He stared into my eyes for a long pause, his thumbs stroking against my hair.

"Are you sure?" His tone had an air of finality to it. This wasn't just a question about temperature.

"Yes, I'm sure."

His face flinched, as if I had slapped him, when he heard my response. As if he secretly wished I had answered differently.

"God, Bella...." Those hands of his cupped my face with a strength he hadn't shown since that first night. They held me firmly in his grasp as his lips moved deliberately over mine. No longer tentative, he kissed me with authority, finding a rhythm that his lips and head moved to in time with mine.

There would be other nights for passionate kisses.

This? This resolute kiss was an unspoken vow of what we'd chosen tonight, knowing there would consequences to deal with later: eachother.

When I finally pulled back, we both looked at eachother in stunned silence at what we'd just entered into together. So unceremoniously in a dingy old theater room, with a B movie playing, and a Junior Mint still melting in my mouth. He looked like he could make another run for the border if I didn't think fast. So I did the only thing I ever did with him when all else failed. I went back to baby steps. Baby steps that didn't make us have to think too hard about what we were doing.

"So, you like popcorn and Junior Mints. Ready to test drive the Icee?"

**xxxx**

_"Do you believe  
In what you see  
There doesn't seem to be anybody else who agrees with me"--- Zero 7, "In the Waiting Line"_


	9. Chapter 9

Author's Note and chapter preview:

Hello, folks. I've been MIA for weeks now with some awesome bronchitis and pneumonia bacterial cocktail of wonders, and have been too exhausted to do much more than image google Robert Pattinson. lol But I promised a teaser for all the lovelies who reviewed and since I haven't even been able to write anything until about 20 minutes ago and Thanksgiving is tomorrow, I thought I'd do a mass quick teaser like this to say thanks to those who reviewed. I hope to pound out a chapter this weekend. Thanks for the pms and emails regarding the delay with this update. I appreciate it and wanted to just say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, even those outside of the US!:(I'll delete this chapter this weekend once I update):

Chapter (rough draft) teaser:

"You or....." Her shakey voice trailed off as I turned sharply to avoid a thick tree stump. I never said piggy backing it made for smooth sailing. My instructions to keep her eyes closed were never heeded though. And Bella paid dearly afterwards, walking around like a dazed child who'd spun around one too many times.

Which only made her smile more.

"You...or......Bruce Lee?"

I rolled my eyes, not bothering to respond. She knew the answer, we went over a similar match-up just yesterday with Jet Li. I'd wait for him to advance with a flying kick, and then slap him down on the floor and -

"bite him in the neck, " she interjected last night.

I never said I was creative with my attack strategies. Just efficient.

A put-out sigh left her mouth in response to my silence; the warm breath danced around my nostrils, burning and comforting me at the same time. The burn signaled she was too close; and that was a good thing now, despite the side effects.

"Fine.....You....or Wolverine....."

I stopped momentarily at the edge of the steep cliff, so she could look before we descended. More than once I'd wondered outloud if she was just using me for makeshift amusement park benefits. Our nightly ritual had yet another feature tacked onto it now. After talking, and me reading to her in silly voices, and her reading "The Little Prince to me in appropriate voices, we now took a quick "night jaunt." Bella swore it helped her to relax.

"It's more effective than a warm glass of milk, promise," she'd say with wild eyes and hair afterwards.

When I mentioned that running down cliffs and up mountains at near-freezing night temperatures could be neither warm or sleep -inducing, she spat yet another line of reasoning off the top of her head.

"It's what parents do with infants, silly. They drive their babies around in their minivans until they fall asleep. You're my minivan, and a cup of warm milk all wrapped into one."

Said the girl who raised her arms way up in the air just before descending downcliff as if she were riding a roller coaster. And screamed all the way down too.

But I never said I wasn't immune to a good lie mixed with flattery, and I played along.

Sometimes we drove for hours before finding a good spot. Sometimes we just stepped out into the forest behind her place. Bella started googling spots within foot and driving distances, tailormade for my useless talents. Her preferences were coastal views with steep drops, just like our first night outside. And without fail, she always had a ziploc baggy at the ready to gather up new sand memories for her dresser. I had a total of five bags on her display now.

We looked down the steep drop together in silence now. This cliff was steeper than usual - a virtual dead man's drop.

No roller coaster arms in the air for this descent, she decided all on her own. She wrapped her arms around me tightly as I started downwards, her stiffled giggles burying into my neck as I ran down the side of the cliff. Once we made it to the bottom, I continued our deathmatch discussion.

"Woverine or me? Are we talking cartoon version, or live action Hugh Jackman version?"

She pondered the match-ups before answering: "Err...live action Hugh Jackman."

"Like taking candy from a baby. I'd put on a Broadway showtune, Wolverine Jack would start tap dancing on cue, and then I'd--"

"bite him on the neck. God, you're so predictable."

Her hand smoothed down my hair gently to let me know she was joking, causing the burn to strengthen inside me. I reminded myself over and over again in silence: the more it burned, the closer she was.

Closer was a good thing.......


	10. Too Far Along In Our Crime

**Chapter 9: Too Far Along In our Crime.**

**a/n:** Thanks for the reviews! I appreciate them all. Thanks to Kstew 411 News via RobMyWorld, Twilight Enabler, Temptation Podcast, Wide Awake Rehab, for rec' love as well. And thanks to the ADF cabin from the lovely rangers over there.

**a/n**: Sorry for the long wait, the bronchitis and pneumonia did a number on me. Thanks to Sevenmom for the TLC!

**a/n**: Chapter title and lyrical quote from: "Phantom Limb" by the Shins. Lovely song about forbidden love. This song's about two lesbians in a small town high school trying to keep it on the down low, (phantom limb - get it? lol), but it works well with interspecies dating as well. :) Song's on my profile.

**a/n: **This is the first part of the entire chapter I wrote--it's basically one 24 hr. period in Edward's life, starting early in the morning. The second part I will post in the next couple days to keep it all fresh in your minds what's going on.

quote: 310:

_"Well, I did wonder...about you and me....someday..."_

_He was instantly serious. I could tell by the sudden stillness of his body. I froze too, reacting automatically._

_"I don't think that....that...would be possible for us."_

_"Because it would be too hard for you, if I were that...close?"_

_"That's certainly a problem. But that's not what I was thinking of. It's just that you are so soft, so fragile. I have to mind my actions every moment that we're together so that I don't hurt you."_

**xxx**(a/n: Italiacs: thoughts in one's head that Edward can hear)

**2:00 AM**

"You or....." Her shakey voice trailed off as I turned sharply to avoid a thick tree stump. I never said piggy backing made for smooth sailing. My instructions to keep her eyes closed were never heeded though. And Bella paid dearly afterwards, walking around like a dazed child who'd spun around one too many times.

Which only made her smile more.

"You...or......Bruce Lee?"

I rolled my eyes, not bothering to respond. She knew the answer, we went over a similar match-up just yesterday with Jet Li. I'd wait for him to advance with a flying kick, and then slap him down on the floor and -

"bite him in the neck, " she interjected last night.

I never said I was creative with my attack strategies - just efficient.

A put-out sigh escaped in response to my silence; her warm breath danced around my nostrils, burning and comforting me at the same time. The burn signaled she was too close; and that was a good thing now, despite the side effects.

"Fine.....You....or Wolverine....."

I stopped momentarily at the edge of the steep cliff, so she could peek over my shoulder before we descended. More than once I'd wondered outloud if she was just using me for makeshift amusement park benefits. Our nightly ritual had yet another feature tacked onto it now. After talking, and me reading to her in silly voices, and her reading "The Little Prince"back at me, we now took a quick "night jaunt." Bella swore it helped her to relax.

"It's more effective than a warm glass of milk, promise," she'd say with wild eyes and hair afterwards.

When I mentioned that running down cliffs and up mountains at near-freezing night temperatures could be neither warm or sleep -inducing, she spat out yet another line of reasoning to make sure all her bases were covered.

"It's what parents do with infants, silly. They drive their babies around in their minivans until they fall asleep. You're my minivan AND a cup of warm milk, all wrapped into one."

Said the girl who raised her arms over her head, roller coaster style.

But I never said I was immune to flattery, so I played along.

Sometimes we drove for hours before finding a good spot to play. Sometimes we stepped out into the forest right behind her place. Bella started googling places within foot and driving distances, tailormade for my useless talents. Her preferences were coastal views with steep drops, just like our first night outside. And without fail, she always had a ziploc baggy at the ready to gather up new sand memories for her dresser.

I had a total of five bags on her sandy dresser top display now.

We looked down the drop together in silence now. This cliff was steeper than usual, a virtual dead man's drop.

No roller coaster arms in the air this time around, she decided all on her own. Bella wrapped her arms around me as I started downwards, her stiffled giggles burrowing into my neck as I ran down the side of the cliff. We were trudging along the sandy bottom below before I responded.

"Wolverine or me? Are we talking cartoon version, or live action Hugh Jackman version?"

She pondered the match-ups before answering: "Err...live action Hugh Jackman."

"Like taking candy from a baby. I'd put on a Broadway showtune, Wolverine Jack would start tap dancing on cue, and then I'd--"

"bite him on the neck. God, you're so predictable."

Her hand smoothed down my hair gently to let me know she was joking. The contact caused the burn to strengthen inside me. I reminded myself over and over again in silence: the more it burned, the closer she was.

"I'd mix it up a little more if I were you. Like rip a limb off, or....." Her soft lips brushed against my ear, on purpose I imagined," kick 'em in the shins." The kiss she planted on my earlobe next forced me into chanting mode.

Closer is a good thing.... burning is a good thing....burning means closer...

So true in theory, but not in reality. Every part of me knew a good thing could turn into a very bad thing if I let my guard for just one second. Too much of her scent twirled around me. Too much of her flesh pressed against me.

Too much Bella. Too much Bella while racing and moving in ways my instincts confused with hunting.

I didn't waste a second by turning us around and speeding back from the way we came from. She didn't ask what I was doing, only leaned her head away from me while patting my shoulder.

I'd done this before, she understood what had happened.

We stayed silent for the rest of the trek back, her head slumped against my shoulder by the time I reached her apartment building.

I'd kept her out too late again.

Only when I scooped her half-conscious form up into my arms and flung us back onto her balcony, did she finally speak.

"You're thirsty again."

Yes.

"You're thirsty more often now..." She waited for me to confirm her fears, even elaborate on it, but I wouldn't. I couldn't. As if I needed to give her another reason to lock her window tonight and shut me out for good. Instead of answering, I laid her gently and pulled the covers over her chilled body.

Kept her out too late again, and for too long.

I kissed my hand and placed it on her cheek, that's the closest I'd let myself get in my current state. That first night I had been too careless in the dark theater, too eager to take what she offered me. Flushed kisses under the pale blue light of the movie projector. Whispers of intentions and promises. Her embraces, even as I slipped into another stupor where she starred in more perverse fantasies I couldn't control.

It was one thing to be careless in public, but her bedroom was a different matter. She was most vulnerable here, and not because I could take her in a variety of ways without any witnesses. She was surrounded by all the things she loved most. Her mother's books, her sandbags of memories, pictures and letters and journals that connected her to the living. I was walking on hallowed ground in this room, and couldn't bear to defile it with deviant impulses of any kind.

"Like a sack of potatoes, that's how you throw me around when putting me into my bed." Her eyes were closed, yet a smirk danced along her lips. I waited in silence for her to drift off again. But her hands reached out blindly, waiting for me fill the space between them. "I think it's my favorite part of all. You throwing me around like a sack of potatoes."

Her fingers twitched impatiently when I continued to keep my distance, beckoning me to her. "Lay down with me, just for a second before you go."

She knew the answer already. I'd yet to lay down beside her, even on nights where I was satiated and centered in my head.

"Fine." Bella opened one eye in my direction while sitting up and patting her hand on the end of the bed. "Just lay down right here then. It's a good compromise."

I assumed the position that I had for the last week, laying halfway on the trunk that was a the foot of her bed, halfway onto the bottom of her mattress. It was a big step in my mind, to go from her porch balcony to here with confidence.

I worried it wasn't enough for her though; it took so much time, so much work, for the slightest advance. She'd be eighty before I could be a proper partner to her.

Her small feet, buried underneath the comforter, sought out my touch. They wiggled through the sheets right in front of my face, demanding my attention. I humored them most nights by laying my hand on top of them while she fell asleep. But tonight I pushed myself a little further. My fingers brushed against her blanketed calf, and I couldn't help but smile when her breathing became more uneven with each carresses.

To know I could affect her, however slight, made me tolerate the stoking flames within better.

So I went even further, pressing my lips against her toes before leaning my head onto her ankles and making a makeshift pillow out of them. She curled her body downwards, extending a hand to my hair.

"I take it back. THIS is my new favorite part."

I didn't let the shame and hunger ruin this one moment. They bled into the background as I basked in the warmth of Bella's acceptance of what little I could offer her.

**xxx**

**6:00 AM**

Another hour, another cliff side. And with less attractive company.

Bella's bed was becoming harder and harder to leave. And the price for not leaving when I should have? Every family member staring me down with scrutinizing eyes. All because I happened to mention I hadn't "gotten around" to the family business at hand yet. The day was breaking and it left little time for me to search. Emmett and Jasper volunteered to help me cover the terrain before school.

Alice and her visions were at it again. Three, maybe four drifters were coming in this direction. The group was loosely organized, and members were added and subtracted casually on their travels. They were a non-threat if they foraged and moved on. But if they squatted in these parts for more than a couple days, mischief could ensue. Alice's visions were changing constantly with their whims and distractions. Not that we were exactly on talking terms these days. I simply digged inside her head for any details I needed.

When were they arriving exactly? That wasn't Alice's job to figure out. She was the first line of defense for our family unit, anticipating the arrival of others like us in our territory. But I was the second line who filled in the details with my abilities. I could hear when they were closing in, keeping the family one step ahead at all times.

That is, when I wasn't offering little human girls cheap thrill rides down the mountainsides.

The sun had risen over an hour ago, and it was getting late. We all stood out at the edge of the cliff, looking down at the forest below. My brain absent-mindedly took note that Bella would probably like this part of the forest for a future hike.

They weren't here yet. Which meant there was time for me to hunt.

"We just went two days ago," Jasper reminded me with the proposal. Little did he know I'd hunted twice since then.

All three of us listened closely to the sounds before us. Our noses surveyed the landscape as well:

Deer moving slowly to the east.

Mountain Lion quietly following their path in the same direction.

Bobcat on the move just below this cliff. And a host of other characters of lesser importance: rabbits, squirrels, even a stray dog. Yet even they were nudging me with their bloodscent. It felt like I hadn't drank in months, and it had been less than twelve hours.

Jasper stared until I looked back at him: "No lion. Not enough time."

I checked my watch: he was right.

"There's always enough time for lion, " Emmett interjected, giving me a conspiratory smirk. With a quick salute, Emmett jumped down the steep drop, landing dozens of yards below, feet first. His deep voice shot out to us from underneath: "The question is who's gonna get to it first, and who'll have to settle for Bambi."

His voice trailed off as he disappeared into the thick blanket of forest below. I followed in fast pursuit as Jasper lingered behind.

Jasper didn't mind deer so much. Or Bobcats for that matter.

Emmett was always predictable, moving like a battering ram in a straight line towards his target. Shoving and pushing brush and trees out of his way, sounding like a agitated hurricane as he approached. Which explained my own strategy: I veered off to the left towards the river, anticipating the change in direction the herd would take with the oncoming Emmett. Crouching down low to the ground, I placed my palms against the ground. The mossy ground reverberated only slightly, like raindrops showering down from inside the ground. But it was enough to know that the herd had turned earlier than anticipated.

I backtracked quickly, jumping onto to a low-hanging tree limb, just in time to watch the herd glide past me in frenzied unison. The lion followed silently, too busy in his own stalking to notice mine. I landed on him just as Emmett attacked as well, his rock hard fist bashing into the side of my face.

All three of us tumbled together, over and over again. As we rolled to a stop, I lunged towards the nape of its neck to stake my claim. Instincts took over, my teeth sawing down its soft skin, left to right and back again. Past thin layers of fat, hard muscle, and harder bone. I freed the blood from it's vessels, directing the overflow into my mouth. The animal struggled feebly, forcing me to bear down harder with my jaws. Silence soon overtook it, leaving me to withdraw its lifeforce in peace.

**xx**

"Edward...Edward...."

My eyes opened and I looked up in a haze. Emmett stared down at me with careful eyes. "Let it go. It's bled dry." He stared up at the position of the sun. "We've been out too long, it's getting late."

I shook my head rapidly as if to say "no," but was really trying to nuzzle deeper into the cavity I'd ripped open at the neck. There had to be more, the thirst was still strong -

"What are you doing? There's nothing lef--"

My head lifted abruptly, vaguely noticing Emmett's words trail off.

Dog.

The little mutt I'd picked up on earlier had wandered its way over to us. Small, underfed; its tail wagging excitedly, begging us to play.

All right.

My body lunged toward the canine without a second thought, snapping its head back and drawing out what little I could from its neck. Which wasn't enough. I pushed the hollowed carcass away from me in frustration.

Emmett's rigid stance grabbed my attention. His eyes narrowed into mere slits. "Jesus. It had its dog tags on still." He nudged the limp body with his shoe. "Since when did you start slumming for house pets?"

A vision of a smirking Bella, resplendent in an oversized nightshirt and sitting Indian-style on her bed, came to mind. She would have laughed at Emmett's unknowing nod to our running joke about pets. Which made me laugh as well. A little too boisterously I imagined, given Emmett's bristled reaction to it.

He crouched down to my eye level. "You okay?" His head tilted in the direction of the dog's broken body. I wasn't sure how to even explain what had made me do that right now.

I nodded back, letting my laughter trail off. He clothes were clean and pressed still, save it for the quick tumble we had earlier.

"Why didn't you go after the deer?"

Emmett didn't take his eyes off me as he sat down. "Why would I? Like Jasper said, we hunted a couple of days ago. I was just trying to hurry you up by pretending I wanted the lion too."

He planted his gaze away from mine, pretending to poke at the leaves on the ground. Emmett smiled easily, but his voice was tight - guarded. "Listen, bro. I've been thinking about a boys-only trip. Up to Alaska, just you and me. We could get away for awhile, get some good hunting in. Apparently the local fare around here isn't enough for you."

Irritation flared inside me. He wasn't just talking about stray pets. The words were an slight towards Bella.

His eyes softened at my tense reaction, and he poked me with his elbow. "The scenery and company up North aren't so bad, either. Especially since they're one and the same."

Tanya.

Forever promoting Tanya. "Blondes are more fun," he once told me in a bid to peak my interest. "But redheads? Redheads are more trouble. Petting zoos are fun. But trouble is that rickety roller coaster at the boardwalk with a five story drop that you're sure is going to kill you, but you still wait in line for the chance. Petting a goat vs. freefalling, there's no comparison."

The word freefalling, something I'd done just hours earlier with a certain non-redhead, made me burst out in laughter again. The nightshirted Bella in my mind laughed harder. Apparently, Emmett had never met a brunette like Bella. And if she had been present, she would have been the first to point out that Emmett had never been to a boardwalk or ridden on a roller coaster - let alone pet a goat.

Under different circumstances, I imagined Emmett and Bella becoming great friends.

"Why are you laughing like that?" Emmett said "laughter" and "that" in an accusatory voice; as if laughter of any kind was unnatural for me, and laughing like "that" was downright criminal.

I tried to redirect the conversation: "Why Alaska?"

"You need to clear your head, your wires have been criss-crossing in weird ways lately." He waited for me to look at him, before deliberately staring back at the limp body of the dog as evidence. "We could go today, right this instance, if you'll let me take you."

His voice was barely above a whisper, as if he trying to keep his words from reaching Jasper. His eyes silently pleaded with me to consider.

I protested too quickly, too loudly about why we couldn't. I mentioned school and the family and any other excuse that could be reined into the argument. Except for reason that mattered most: Bella.

But Emmett understood. The human girl who was monopolozing my nights in ways no one was sure of yet was my only concern.

"All roads lead to back to her, don't they? You not willing to go right now. Your distracted ways...." He finished his sentences in his head:

_And this thirst inside you? The one that's been unswayed by the mountain lion today, and deer just days ago? That's got you groveling over mutts the size of a cat? It can't be satisfied by drinking. And it can't be satisfied by that little girl over late night movie screenings and hand holding. She's bringing all of this out of you, but she can't satisfy it. She'll break faster than that mutt did, if you try to quench anything with her..._

I shook my head in indignation, as if I'd put her in any more danger than she already was with my company. For years he'd joked that one day we were going to have "the talk" once I actually took an interest in someone. Who knew he took the charge so seriously.

"You don't understand what's between us. It's not like that." At least I kept telling myself that. That we could stay as we have been indefinitely. Sweet and intimate and comforting to one another, as long as I kept other desires in check.

His thoughts screamed back at me:

_If it's not like THAT and yet there's something between you, then you're only making my point more. What's next for you two? Taking her to prom, pinning her with a corsage and kissing her goodnight on the front porch swing? Those sorts of things, Edward? Are not in the cards for you, you relinquished those rites decades ago. And I think being around her, you're forgetting that fact. _

He surveyed my defiant expression and tried a different approach.

_If we went up North, you could put things in perspective better, put some distance between you and the situation--_

"Bella. Her name is Bella. And I don't want distance from her right now."

_What you want and what you need aren't the same right now, and you damn well know it. We don't even have to be gone long. Just some hunting, some fresh air to clear your head a little, a quick visit to Tanya. Tanya could put things in perspective for you. Could make what was brought out by the girl a good thing in the end -_

_"_What she brought out is a good thing already. And I'll manage whatever is happening to me. I've handled strong hungers like this before."

He couldn't argue. I'd fallen the farthest during my rebellious years. But I'd risen the farthest as well, mastering my appetites without so much as a slip since my turnaround.

Emmett couldn't say as much.

"The visitors are coming. I'm not leaving Bella alone here with them." I tried to lighten the mood, " Knowing her, she'd probably pull up right next to them on the side of the road and offer them a ride to town. She has a knack for finding disaster."

"Obviously." Emmett continued staring at the ground, deep in thought. "I know her pull is strong right now, but you can still turn this around. It's not too late, for either of you."

I didn't like the tone he took, as if it embedded a warning. The fact he began to repeat the alphabet inside his head to shut me out of his thoughts only heightened my distress.

"What if I want it to be too late?"

Emmett's grim face finally met mine: "Then it already is."

**xx**

_"This town seems hardly worth our time,  
And we'll no longer memorize or rhyme,  
Too far along in our crime"_

_ --The Shins_

_**xx**_

_**PS:**_

_** some FAQ from last chapter:**_

**a/n: FAQ: Why is your Cullen family portrayal so harsh/OOC?** I actually think the Cullens in Twilight exhibited the idea of "family first." And that's great once you're in the family, and when Bella first meets them, she's already "in" because Edward had already chosen her to be his partner. But before it was official that she was "in," it's pretty clear that excluding Carlisle and Alice, the rest of the family would have found her expendable if she got in the way of compromising their family in any way. They voted on whether to kill her or not just weeks before she met them. So, this fic is sorta going with this notion--that the Cullens will give up their lives for you once you're in the family. If you're not a full fledged member yet though, you are still a viable threat.


	11. Oh Bless Me Lord For I Have Sinned

**Chapter 10: Oh Bless Me Lord For I Have Sinned**

**a/n:** Thanks for the reviews, lovelies.

**a/n:** Title and lyrical quote from Green Day's "East Jesus Nowhere." It's up on my profile.

**a/n:** This is continuing Edward's "day in the life" from last chapter.

**a/n:** Quote, p.302: "_You seem...more optimistic than usual," I observed. "I haven't seen you like this before."_

"Isn't it suppossed to be like this?" He smiled. "The glory of first love, and all that. It's incredible, isn't it, the difference between reading about something, seeing it in the pictures, and experiencing it?"

**11:00AM**

"Derek, can you read the last two stanzas?" Mr. La Sala sat behind his desk pretending to read along with the text. Of course he was watching something off his Ipod though that was hidden within the book. His internal laughter suggested a bawdy comedy. Mr. La Sala had checked out of teaching years ago. He didn't know the half of it - I'd checked out of listening in class even decades earlier.

Third period World Literature.

Not even halfway through the school day, and it felt like years since I'd last seen her.

Derek took in a deep breath and read out loud: "Rebuilding a love I thought was dead as nails, Blessing the death and the baptism by fire."

_Baptism By Fire._

If kisses were given self-important titles, that phrase would have summed up our very first, just one week prior. A modest kiss by any standard - it didn't last longer than a minute. Chaste and tender from her end. But it swept through my body like an inferno; my throat aflame, my mouth and eyes and nose pooling with hot venom from first contact. The pain throughout my body was one I'd never experienced before, acute and overwhelming.

But rising from the ashes of it all was an offer of a new life. And Bella smiling before me, once the pain subsided. She offered to "test drive" more flavors on our lips, even held up her Icee cup and giggled flirtatiously. It was all an act of course, two-fold in its deception.

The flavors were to mute her taste. Just as I had asked her to spray on her cologne to dilute her scent when I was around her. She was trying to make this easier for me.

Above all, her light heartedness was trying to distract me from the truth. We'd entered a pact; a promise of sorts, to venture down an unknown path together, not even knowing where the path would lead us.

_Us_......

That word alone made smile. There had been times when my siblings used the word as a couple, driving me towards resentment. As if there were lines drawn in the sand that seperated me from everyone else, when I would have drawn them in on my side without a second thought. Now I finally understood: Bella drawn into a corner with me was all I needed.

We sealed the pact with kiss. The silence that followed weighted heavily upon us both. I began to panic, worried that she didn't understand what she was signing up for with me.

But Bella? She just sipped from her straw loudly; beckoning me to come back to her, into the here and the now.

"This is cherry flavored," she whispered, before leaning into me again, letting our lips brush against one another again. The flames flashed forward inside me just as it had a moment earlier. And then receded, leaving me in the care of Bella's soft hands and warm mouth.

Fair trade.

"I saw some licorice strands at the snack counter," I mentioned, a silent message to her that I was staying right where I was. "They didn't seem to make much of an impression on me from _before_, but I think you could remedy that."

Without a word, she departed from the theater, only to return minutes later with some Red Vines - and Raisinettes to boot.

**xx**

"Thank you, Derek." Mr. La Sala walked up to the board and began to outline the themes of the poem. It was around this time that I would fold up inside myself, drowning out all voices and sound. Stare out the window and into the cloudy sky, identifying as many distinct shades of grey as possible. That could kill thirty minutes if I was being thorough. Other times, I'd spend a whole week watching paint chip, micromilimeter by micromilimeter. Hardly engaging by any stretch of the imagination, but still preferable to overhearing the banal thoughts of teenagers. Banal and repetitive, to be precise.

And yet....

During the past week, I found myself dipping into the mental buzzings around me. Their chattering thoughts were chock full of relationship woes and delights, romantic miscommunications and misunderstandings. They were the same musings I'd been subjected to year after year. But they held a new mysterious power over me now in light of recent events. It was like hearing them for the first time, and in a way that spoke to me.

I wasn't sure whether to be mortified or comforted by the revelation. All I knew for sure was that I couldn't stop listening.

I couldn't stop listening to Christian wax carnally poetic about Sarah biting on the end of her pencil. I couldn't stop listening to Quinn mentally loop and replay how he'd gotten away with grazing Samantha Peter's breast while passing papers down the row just twenty minutes earlier. And I couldn't stop listening when Jason wondered if he could get Kirsten's attention by flirting with her best friend.

Bella had been right. All seventeen year old boys were predatory. And for the first time, I wondered if some of my deviant thoughts about Bella were coming less from the monster and more from the boy within.

Or maybe boys and monsters had more in common than I'd realized.

Today's focus was squarely on the two girls sitting beside me though, and their frantic texting back and forth. One of them had just started dating an older boy higher up on the high school social pyramid. Amanda, less knowledgeable on the relationship protocols of the popular caste, desperately sought the advice of her more experienced friend on how to proceed. I couldn't stop listening as they typed one exclamatory statement after another:

_"How far have you gone?"_

_"Halfway in between 1st and 2nd."_

_"?????" _

_"What?"_

_"There is no such thing as half bases."_

Something to keep in mind. Since technically, I imagined Bella and I had ventured halfway to first ourselves.

_"And you round DOWN, not up. Own that you've stalled at first, Manda."_

What's it called when you are at home plate, and not because you scored anything remotely like a homerun?

_"You've been going out for three weeks, and you haven't even slid into second base yet? How does he walk upright with the mega-case of blueballs you hand - delivered him? Oh wait, if you HAD hand - delivered, we wouldn't be having this conversation...."_

_"NOT funny. But he hasn't pushed or even asked to go further. ????"_

_"Asking sounds desperate. Jordan Cohen is not desperate. But I'm sure he's left hints. They always drop hints. ALWAYS."_

I leaned forward reflexively, as if the mysteries of the world were about to be revealed to me.

_"Like what what kind of hints?"_

_"*rolling eyes* You're a smart girl, Manda, I'm sure you've picked up on them."_

_No..........._

.......both Amanda and I thought in unison. Which didn't do much for my already-bruised ego.

_"You know." _Her friend prompted. "_Frustrated sighs when you cut short a makeout session. Conveniently getting you both in the backseat of his car, or a couch; or most ideally, his bed, in the hopes of getting you hot and horizontal." _

_"What kind of sighs. ????"_

I knew that kind of sigh, although I hadn't recognized it until this moment. It was that long, drawn-out breath expelled by Bella every time I broke off a careful kiss just as it began to intensify.

Shortness of breath, was my blind guess with her mind closed to me. But frustration now seemed like a more probable cause.

Time had ceased to exist for me - I'd waited over a century to experience my first kiss. But Bella was human, and hellbent on believing her time was almost up on earth. Time was of the urgent essence for her.

Was she also frustrated when I refused her nightly offer to lay in her bed, opting instead for more distance between us?

Yes, she probably was. But there was something more to it, if I looked closer. Her offers had become more shy in recent days, almost said as afterthought.

Frustration _and_ a feeling of rejection.

_"What kind of sighs, Manda? The kind that sounds like a balloon deflating, as if you're actuallly hearing Jordan's chances of getting laid slipping away. And another big hint? Attempting to loosen you up so you're not so uptight, like maybe with chocolate, or flowers and a good pasta with clam sauce, or a little wine..."_

Or a little Icee.

Amanda texted back in a panic.

_"Second base, tops for now. I'm not ready for more. Not yet."_

And this was where Amanda and I parted ways. I was too eager for more, to the point I had to flip the switch off completely to maintain control. Images of harming Bella were now replaced with ravishing her and her ravishing me back. And the more those images flooded my mind, the more reserved I became with her. The quicker I cut off contact.

Had I ever bothered to explain this to her?

Amanda's friend assured her she could compensate in other ways if she wasn't ready yet.

_"Stop being so shy with him at lunch. You always look down and act quiet around his friends, and you make him do all the work affection wise. I dare you to walk right into the cafeteria, make your way to his table, and plant a huge kiss on his lips. Guys live for that, when girls mark their territory publicly. It makes them feel wanted. **It may not be as good as a blow job, but at least he'll see you're on the right path."**_

Indeed.

My mind was racing now, viewing the past week with new eyes. I'd been so focused on keeping that too-thin veneer of control in place, I hadn't noticed how my steely resolve could be interpreted from Bella's end. All her jokes about pets and drumsticks, and chickens and mice. They were humorous, but they served a purpose too. She was asking me if I wanted her, even after I thought I'd answered the quesetion.

She was the one who had to initiate contact everytime. I was always the one to break it. She initiated a grand public gesture at the movies last week. I'd yet to answer back.

I looked at my watch. Three more periods. Three more periods to figure out a response worthy of a frustrated girl who mouthfeeds Icees to frustrating monsters with a wink.

**xxx**

**4:OO PM**

_Why is Cullen holding dyed sunflowers?_

Idiot. Couldn't he tell Gerber Daisies when he saw them?

This was a definite complication. As a ponytailed-swishing Bella shuffled around in the back kitchen, I was stuck in the front dining area of her coffeehop. Along with a group of children from my school. Ten in all, the top tier of the social pyramid. No doubt the girls at the table had dragged the boys along to such a place; they all slurped on fancy drinks with whipped cream on top while the boys had nothing in front of them.

Their thoughts were running at a million miles a minute. Some were wondering why I was holding flowers. Some of the more perceptive children were worried by the "deadly" stare I was throwing their way. One girl regretted that I was so "weird," because I had a good face and a nice sense of style. The same style her boyfriend was silently citing, along with the neon pink and orange Gerbers I was holding, as yet another reason to conclude that I was gay.

In any other circumstance, their thoughts would have sounded like white noise, too petty to bother even entertaining. But I was venturing onto their territory right now. Suddenly their opinions, from how my posture was too erect to my too furrowed eyebrows, pierced through my usual apathy.

"Edward?"

My head shot back in her direction as she was wiping her hands on her apron. Bella's face was absent of makeup, and she never looked more beautiful. She didn't acknowledge the huge bouquet I held in my hands outright; instead, she began to tap her left foot nervously, while looking anywhere but at the flowers.

I swooped in with a firm kiss for her lips while placing them in her hand. When I stepped back to gauge her reaction, she closed the distance just as quickly, tipping on her toes to kiss me back on my nose.

Try and top that in the cafeteria tomorrow, Amanda.

A variety of mental outbursts rang out from the table beside us. The girls were sizing up Bella with a viciously critical eye. But the boys were impressed that I was dating a college girl.

"They're lovely, Edward. I've never gotten flowers before. Thank you..."

She closed her eyes while she sniffed the orange and pink and magenta flowers, even though they lacked any scent. I couldn't help but smile at the perfect sight before me.

_Cullen smiling? What the hell....did he just skin a cat right now to make him this happy?_

My eyes flitted to the left at Jaron Maine's inner voice. If he only knew about my activities just nine hours prior.

"The blooms reminded me of you." I hedged for a moment, worried it sounded too rehearsed. Which it was, two full periods of rehearsal to be exact. " You're technicolor while everything else pales into the background."

She graced me with an adoring smile and a cupped hand to the side of my jaw; her secret weapon really, a gesture that made me nuzzle further into her warm palm. I let myself enjoy the moment, closing my eyes and memorizing her thumb's slow movement along my jawline.

_He's closing his eyes and smiling? Edward effing' Cullen was real boy afterall._

The mental chorus beside us was too much. I quickly grabbed Bella's hand and guided her to the back storage room behind the register area. The grand public gesture had just gone private.

"Too many prying eyes" was my only offering when Bella raised an questioning eyebrow.

She took out the envelope in the bouquet. This note was the biggest gamble of the gesture, a written segueway into everything I wanted to tell her.

Her eyebrows knitted as she read the one line on the card outloud:

**"This may not be as good as a blow job, but at least you'll know I'm on the right path."**

So that line wasn't going to be picked up anytime soon for a Hallmark Greeting Card, but it did the job. The crude yet timely quote from Amanda's friend made her giggle and plant another quick kiss on my nose: "Aw, honey, that's so sweet. But you're definitely on the wrong path if this culminates in you giving me a blow job."

I couldn't help it; I laughed out in triumph, a shameless outburst that would have given all the kids in the front room a heart attack to witness. Edward Cullen, the cold, scowling boy who got perfect scores and perfect answers in class and wore perfect clothes and drove perfect cars, yet never had one word to share with anyone. And now he didn't only share words with this girl before him, but conspiratory glances and laughter and inside jokes. Even grand gestures tinged with a dab of vinegar. Because with a girl like Bella, a little tartness made it all the more sweeter.

I explained what had transpired that morning, and worked my way backwards. How the girls' conversation sparked worries that I hadn't explained enough to her. That I wanted her too much, and was still trying to figure out how handle those feelings. That it was confusing and frustrating, because all I wanted to do was reach out and hold her or kiss her or lie down beside her without a second thought. But each of those actions needed a second and third and hundredth thought, to make sure I was always in control.

"I was trying to get a handle on it all before it was even an issue, but those girls today. They reminded me that my timetable might be a little off. And the last thing I wanted was for you to run in the other direction the minute I explained this out in detail."

"If I haven't run away yet, I think you're safe at this point." She wrapped her arms around my neck cautiously, keeping eye contact to make sure this was all right. "I know this is hard for you. Sometimes I just forget and want everything right now."

"I want you to forget," I added. "That's the goal, for me to be in a good enough place so that you can forget, and it won't matter. I'm not there yet, so I need a little time. But I'm heading that way."

"How very domesticated of you."

My secret wish, really. To be tamed to the point that I was enough for her. Good for her even, and not just as her henchman.

"Speaking of domesticating. How about we forego the "night jaunt" for something a little more proper. Dinner? Movie?"

Her eyebrows furrowed though in response.

"I like our night jaunts more than any movie. And you can't eat at a restaurant. That wouldn't be fun for you."

I was about to reassure her nothing sounded more fun to me, when she cut me off.

"Oh crap, back up. I'm making dinner at Charlie's tonight." She looked up at me for a long pause, gauging my face as she continued. "Would you like to come over? Maybe meet the Chief?"

My first thought was no. Avoiding law enforcement was a general rule in our family. Dating their daughters, and then entering their homes was downright stupid. But she asked me in the middle of a grand gesture.

What else was I suppossed to say?

**xxx**

**7:00 PM**

"How old are you here?"

She stared at the picture on her wall. " I couldn't have been more than ten."

I was drinking in every detail throughout Bella's childhood home. In each room, I imagined a young Bella getting morning cereal, doing her homework at the dining room table, reading some overwrought romance in the family room with the throw blanket over her legs.

And here in her bedroom, images flooded out at warped speed. Her sleeping calmly in a bed, before nightmares would take over years later. Her looking out the bay window in the corner, daydreaming of what was to come in her life.

Which jarred me. Those dreams must have been a world away from where she found herself now. Mother gone, convinced her time would follow soon after, a monster for a suitor. Her situation was more bleak and desperate than anything a Bronte sister or two could conjure up.

Or Stephen King for that matter.

I should have felt shame for even entering her house. I didn't belong in this world anymore, I didn't belong in her world specifically. But as I sat on her bed, watching our reflections from the dresser mirror, with Bella resting her head on my shoulder, I couldn't rally up a lick of guilt if I tried.

And I was trying.

Bella looked happy, smiling back at me. I looked more than happy, a grin that was about to rip at the seams. My presence in her bedroom looked natural. It felt natural. New images flooded forth, not from the past either. But of a possible future together. Normal and blissfully uneventful. Doing homework together while dinner cooked. Weekly meals with the father. Weekend dates, not just out in the wild. But inside four walls, be it a museum in the city, or a restaurant here at home.

Her father wasn't home yet. He was picking up a friend to bring home to try out Bella's lasagna, and was running a little late.

Fine by me.

"We'll just pretend we ate beforehand, that way you're not the only one not eating."

Her words made suddenly aware of my growing thirst. "No, you eat with them, I'll think up an excuse like I always do. But I wish I had a little more time, I'd go out in the woods behind us to hunt. "

Meeting the Chief on an empty stomach suddenly seemed incredibly stupid. Chiefs had better instincts than regular civilians, their jobs relied on the art of detecting deception.

"Ew, I'd like to see that sometime. Maybe I could ride on top of your back while you slash and dash through the forest for dinner."

Her eyes were enthusiastic. As if it were even a possibility.

"You will never be party to what goes on in the woods. It's very dangerous. Instincts take over and with that fragrance you give off?"

I mentally shuddered at the notion of her being within five miles of me when I'm in such a state. Bella remained unconvinced though.

"I don't believe you. I bet it's all sexy when you hunt. You probably swagger down through the forest like it's a catwalk, and you shoot out Zoolanderish Blue Steel gamma rays from your eyes to stop the animals dead in their tracks."

She began to walk forward, in what she imagined was a model's gait. It just looked like she had a limp though. I forced myself not to laugh as I settled down into a low crouch. A quiet growl seethed out as she stopped - dead in her tracks.

No gamma rays needed.

"You shouldn't tease me when I'm hungry like this."

She put on a brave front, even if her eyes widened. "You drive a Volvo. It's hard to be scared of a Volvo driver. Hell, it's even a hatchback--"

I sprang forward and tackled her to the ground, shifting quickly so I absorbed our fall. My arms clamped around her tighter, silently willing her to take back her words.

It only made her laugh and scream louder. She squirmed and wiggled in an attempt to escape, but to no avail. The movement was stoking the fires inside me again but I pushed it to the back of my mind. This was too much fun.

Her body suddenly froze, then relaxed into a dead weight.

"Bella?"

We were spooned on our sides now on the floor, her body gripped against mine. The sudden stillness made me very aware of her soft curves against me. I should have put some space between us, but I couldn't let go. It felt too good, even if it ensured I'd have to leave this dinner early to hunt.

She turned her head over her shoulder and stared at me, innocent smile intact. Even as she stuck out a pointed tongue and dragged it along the length of my hand slowly.

All it took was a second, a hot quick second for me to loosen my grip as she tongued me, and Bella broke free.

"The hunter becomes the bitch," she laughed out, not caring I was toppling her again within a second of her freedom. Bella was laying on top of me, squirming like before, and all I could do was close my eyes. Breathe slowly. And enjoy her touch for a few more seconds before I cut it all off.

It was too much movement, too much Bella, and yet I decided I could stand it a couple seconds more. And I could hear the front door open. And the footsteps up the stairs, even as Bella was screaming to let her free. And racing thoughts flying by my head. But that didn't matter either, only the girl on top of me mattered in this second. Even more than the thought of her officer Daddy bursting in, guns ablazing and ready to take me out.

If only it were that easy. My smile widened, imagining me being entombed in Bella's house, on her bedroom floor, around things and people she loved most.

But it wasn't Daddy afterall. Daddies don't growl. And Daddies don't move at warped speed and push me with the force of several men.

"Bella, move! Seth!"

It was a young girl, no more than twenty, trying to get to Bella. Dark hair, olive skinned, distinctive blood scent.

Q tribe.

I pushed her back easily, she was no match for me. But she was calling reserves. Another body shuffled through the door, too quickly for human feet. I huddled Bella into my chest and jumped upwards as chaos ensued. My only saving grace midair? A creaky ceiling fan that didn't look strong enough to hold our weight - but it would have to do. My hand grabbed onto the heavy base, flipping both of us upside down as we watch the scene below.

I finally got a look at my two perpetrators, and wanted to laugh. A boy even younger than the girl was her "back-up." He couldn't have been more than fifteen. They were pacing back and forth in the space below us, their bodies shaking as their breathing became more labored. Their thoughts were racing all over in unison, from worrying about Bella to wanting to rip me up with their own teeth.

They were both seconds away. Young pups, only recently changed. I held my grip tighter on a too-quiet Bella as I pulled my lips back and bared me teeth.

"Calm down, the two of you," I said in a soft voice. "I'm not going to hurt her. But if you phase, and you take one step in her direction that so much as harms a hair on her head, I will kill you without a second thought."

My words shook Bella out of her stupor.

"NO, Edward!" Bella's face turned to me, horrified.

There was no time to respond - a single mental voice rang out from the rest. Masculine, tired, frantic, as the body that housed it ran up the stairs: _"Bella....Bella...my Bella..."_

He couldn't have walked in at a worse time. Bella was pleading with me, crying, babbling that no one needed to die. She was being held, presumably against her will, upside down by a boy who must have looked feral and wild. My teeth were bared, my growls unleashed. Same with the young children circling below me. His jaw dropped, but his hands were reaching for his holster despite the shock.

"Daddy, it's okay..please..." Bella yelled out; some vague plea not to shoot me, I imagined. But it was all in vain. Because before the Chief could even answer, an object hit him in the back of his head, causing him to stumble and fall to the ground. And standing right behind him with a kitchen pan in hand?

"Sue," Bella breathed out in a confused whisper.

**xx**

The woman wasted no time. She spoke to the children in their native language, barely above a whisper. But it was commanding in nature, and soon they were both backing out into the hall. They were ready to phase within a moment's notice if they needed to though.

She walked back into the room carefully, keeping her eye on Bella the whole time.

"Bella, don't be scared. You are going to be alright."

I let go of the ceiling fan, landing back down onto the floor, with Bella still in my arms. I answered all her silent questions: "She _is_ going to be alright. No, I'm not going to hurt her. No, I'm not a stranger to these parts. I'm a Cullen."

"Cullen? " Her eyes widened, as her thoughts took a whole new direction. "What are you doing here? In their house? In _her_ bedroom?"

Before anything could be said, her eyes focused on the smallest detail: my thumb rubbing against Bella's waist reassuringly.

_Too intimate_, her mind screamed out._ Too knowing. _

_"_Oh, God....oh God..." She took a step closer to us - I backed up by the same amount. "Bella, please, take my hand. I know this is all confusing right now, and I promise I'll explain. But please, take my hand. RIGHT NOW." Her voice trailed off frantically as she reached out for Bella.

"I said I'm not going to hurt her---"

Her eyes darted towards me, filled with disgust. "Of course you're hurting her. This has to violate the treaty. I claim kinship with Bella, I've been in her life since she was child. She's not some unprotected girl you can take advantage of."

Her mind raged at the impression that I was having sex with Bella under false pretenses. That Bella thought I was human.

"Sue please, I invited him here. This is just a misunderstanding." Bella's voice was shakey and pleading. She nudged me to loosen my grip, and slid down beside me. "I'm fine, see?"

"Yes, it is a misunderstanding, Bella. And I'll explain everything right now." She reached her hand out towards Bella. "But please, come to me."

Bella shook her head slowly, putting her hand into mine instead. Sue stifled a cry.

"Bella, I'm begging. You don't understand what's going on right now."

Bella shook her head slowly again, resting her ear on top top of my silent heart. She then lifted my cool hand to her lips, and kept them there for several seconds. "I understand, Sue. I understand completely."

Sue's face twisted in silent agony at the revelation. "Oh, Bella. No. Don't do this. This goes against all your mother saved you for. This goes against...God."

Bella didn't move an inch. The woman's face became more frantic as her thoughts raced for an argument that would pierce through Bella's defiance.

"And your father. Think of your father. This will kill him."

Bella's eyes narrowed as her chin lifted up. "Says the woman who just hit him on the back of the head with frying pan."

An inappropriate laugh jumped out from my thought, I couldn't help it.

Bella rushed to her father, but Sue blocked her. "Go. Get him out of here. I'll take care of your father. But _he_ can't be here when your father awakes. We will talk about this later in peace."

Her gentle voice turned hard once it was directed at me.

"We will talk as well. With the elders present. "

**xxx**

**Midnight**

"Again."

One of the only few words she had spoken in the past couple hours. Up a cliff. Down a cliff. Repeat. Bella was in amusement park mode, unwilling to talk about anything that just happened. She just wanted to ride a makeshift roller coaster - again and again.

"No. Enough. We need to get you home - you're freezing."

I was at her bedroom window within minutes, and had tucked her under a sheet within a second. It was the first moment we'd been face to face since everything happened.

"Well, that was a bust." Her glib smile didn't fool me for a moment.

"I should have never gone to your father's house. I knew better. I even heard the footsteps and their thoughts before they came in. It's just like you said earlier - sometimes I forget."

She looked down at our intertwined hands. "Why did she hit my father like that? I don't understand anything that happened right now. None of it."

"She was trying to protect him. Your father wasn't meant to be exposed to their secrets."

"What secrets?"

"The Quileute's secrets."

Her silence prompted me to explain things to her.

About the tribe, my family, and our shared secrets:

"Natural enemies," she asked in confusion. "Seth's like a kid brother to me, he's never had an enemy in his life." I hadn't realized how intertwined her ties were with the tribe. How she practically saw some of them as family - as they did with her.

About uneasy treaties:

"There's actual boundaries?" Bella held back apalled laughter. " Are you guys taking too many cues off the Sharks and the Jets or what?"

About shape shifting and unpredictable young pups--

"That's what was happening to Leah? And Seth? They were....shifting?"

"Yes. Or on the verge of doing so."

She took my hands in hers and then asked in the softest of voices: "When you said you would have killed them for harming a hair on my head, you didn't mean it, right?"

I didn't answer outloud - I didn't think I could. My eyes answered for me though, unrepentant and unblinking.

She put her head down, making it impossible for me to read her face. But her shoulders shook slightly, and a low sob followed.

I wrapped my arms around her, even though her body tensed on contact. "I'm so sorry, Bella. I'm sorry I'm scaring you. I just...you don't know how dangerous that situation could have become at a moment's notice."

She took a deep breath before responding. "I think I just reached my limit for ingesting things that don't make sense, Edward. I'm at full capacity right now, filled to the brim."

She pushed away from me and began to fan her eyes with hands. "And please. Please. Never mention harming someone in the name of my safety again. Surviving at someone else's expense is unbearable."

Her mother. Of course she was talking about her mother.

"DO you understand me?"

I nodded back, even though I couldn't answer that question definitively.

She turned away from me, her tears streaming now, as she buried her face in her hands. I turned away from her in the movie theater last week too, when my visions took over.

I took her back into my arms, even if she was hesitant, and spoke the very words she used on me when I felt out of control myself: "Stay with me while this happens to you. And when you come out of the other end of it, I'll be waiting right here for you."

It was like a floodgate opening. Deep, mournful cries broke out into the dark silence. Mournful words as well:

"I miss my mom."

"I'll miss you just as much when I leave you behind."

"I can't bear to leave my father alone."

"I just want be with you without all this other...stuff."

I rocked her throughout the outbursts, thinking how odd it was: She held me through my worst fantasies. I was holding her through her worst realities.

"I hate. HATE. HATE that IT follows me everywhere I go, and never gives me a moment's peace. Not one minute to breathe."

"It?"

"You know what IT is." She tilted her head to the side. "IT's always just out of eyesight, but I feel it. Don't you feel it?" Bella stared at me as if what she was referring to was the most obvious thing in the world. " Feel him?"

It was the first time she had talked about "IT" in weeks. But the topic always seemed to underline so many of her thoughts.

"Bella, I promised you once, and I'll promise you again. I will not let "it" near you."

She looked unconvinced.

"I defy whatever this IT is. I've defied IT for a century. and I'll defy IT for you too. Do you understand me?"

I didn't elaborate what it was. To her, it was a real perseonage of death, watching her every move with sick pleasure, waiting for a moment to take her when she leasts expected it.

I wasn't so sure. That could have been IT. Or maybe IT was just a manifestation of her guilt. That she didn't feel worthy of her mother's sacrifice.

It didn't matter what IT was though. I would seek it out, and destroy IT. Or heal IT, if it was something inside her head. Whatever it took to make Bella feel safe again.

The thought pained me. IT was the reason she'd come into my life, and stayed put right where she was beside me. I was IT in that empty warehouse weeks ago. To heal her would mean to give her up someday - to return her to life. And that didn't include an undead boy in the picture.

But tonight wasn't about that. She was here with me now. She was looking at me with hope that I said what I meant, I meant what I said.

I couldn't heal her or save her tonight, but I could make her forget, even if it was for a few seconds.

I grazed my lips against her jawline. I could feel her muscles tensing into a smile.

"You know what? Fuck IT."

She knew I was trying to speak her sailor language, and probably failing miserably at it. It sounded as unnatural if I had used some other colloquialism from a different time and place, like "groovy" or "gams." But that was the point. It made her laugh and dry up those tears for the time being.

"God, aren't you the town trollop. You're already thinking about fucking IT when you still haven't given me a blow job."

Just like that, her mood changed. That teasing smile was present again, issuing a challenge of some sort.

I let myself feel the pride, the accomplishment of knowing I could do that to her.

Her words struck something in me. I smiled back as innocently as possible, leaning my lips down to her neck. "One blow job for the pretty sailor girl." I blew out cool air from within me, knowing it would tickle her.

A clever play on words, was what I thought.

But her reaction surprised me. Bella's body arched below the sheets slowly upwards, her mouth parting as it released a sigh. Not a frustrated sigh. No, this was wanting and breathless, as if it was anticipating what was to come next.

I pulled backwards to read her face better. Heavy lidded eyes stared back, expectant for things I could not offer yet.

"Again," she whispered,while tapping her finger on her neck. She was reassuring me she didn't want more - just more of the same.

Instincts took over; the human ones, once her intentions were clear. I scrambled to all four knees and elbows, hovering over her. I started in for her neck again. But what would happen happen if I touched her with my breath somewhere else? Would she make the same sounds - the same face that were making forget to breathe?

I leaned down towards her bare collarbone, and blew air out along its ridge. I watched mesmerized as her eyes closed while her hips swayed slightly beneath the sheet.

Her breath sucked inward this time, a full blown gasp, before Bella brought her head upand pressed her lips against mine. It was a careful kiss, from outside appearances. But the energy exchanging between us was anything but careful.

Subtext is everything.

She broke the kiss first throwing her head back onto the pillow. Her hands were fiddling underneath the sheet, before her shirt and bra were flung over her head - and onto the floor below. She primly lined the sheet over her chest, staring upward.

"Again."

My head moved on its own accord before my mind could scold it, right on top of her breast. Just a a thin sheet seperated us. Something in me knew how careless this was. How being careless had led to everything happening the way it did tonight, including now. Yet, I couldn't stop myself completely.

I leaned in even closer, my lips blowing over her left breast. Then her right. I leaned back for just a quick second, admiring my handiwork as both swells tightened and pressed more urgently against the sheet. It was the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen, a sort of "oh-I-get-it-now" moment where the heavens parted and revealed why I did what I did day after day. Watching Bella's face so thick with implications, her nipples straining against thin cotton, hips grinding in countertime. All greedily beckoning me to them at once.

Every day I'd waited. Waited for paint to chip. Or a movie to end. Or for dawn to break. Always waiting, but for what?

For this perfect moment: Of Bella offering herself to me.

And I had yet to ruin that perfect offering by accepting it.

Bella's hand on my cheek shook me out of my private revelry. "Is this too hard for you? You're so quiet."

"Yes; in all the best ways, I assure you." I touched her cheek back to know I was okay.

Ground rules, I told myself. Two more minutes. Kisses permitted. Sheet stays right where it is. My body stays right where it is, hovering, not pressing against her. Hands stay on her soft hair - and will not venture to the two twin places that they wanted to venture to most.

And I knew I had to get back to Carlisle, and argue my case before the Q tribe got to him. And I was already late with checking the perimeters like I'd promised, scouting for any knew signs of the visitors. Not to mention checking up on Charlie, or figuring out what IT is, or what Sue had in mind for me. Because her eyes made such a promise. And I still needed to hunt before I marked anything else off the checklist. Because at this very moment I felt like I'd end up a barbequing myself inside-out if I continued to kiss Bella like I was. The hunger, and pain from it, was stronger than ever.

But they'd have to wait, because right now I had Bella beneath me and around me, and that was all that mattered.

Fuck IT. Fuck it ALL.

**xxx**

**"A Fire Burns Today  
Of Blasphemy and Genocide  
The Sirens of Decay  
Will Infiltrate the Inside"**

**---Green Day, "East Jesus Nowhere"  
**


	12. A Damn, Damn Leash

**Chapter 11: A Damn, Damn Leash  
**

**a/n:** Thanks for all the lovely reviews, you guys are great. I really appreciate them.

**a/n: **I'm a dumb ass. I've been writing a little when I can, and it's been a month since my last update. And I realized my "chapter" I'm writing is already at 12,000 words, and that do'h! I should just divide it up into three. That way, I can give a weekly update for the next three weeks and be more consistent with updates. I get too stuck in thinking the chapter has to end at a certain point. lol

**a/n:** The chapter title and song lyric at the end of the chapter is from **Be Your Own Pet's "Damn Damn Leash."** It's link is on my profile.

**a/n:** **Last chapter refresher**: Edward eavesdrops into the minds of his classmates to get insight on how to proceed with Bella, attempts a grand public gesture, tries to go to Charlie's home for dinner, only to be met with a near-phasing Leah and Seth, and Bella and Edward (slightly) test the waters physically for the first time, Edward declares war on "IT" and "All" of the other stuff that seems to be coming at Bella and their relationship, and Edward declares war on "IT" and anything else that gets in the way of Bella and their relationship.

**xxxx**

**quote from Twilight, p.174: " You're not a magnet for accidents - that's not a broad enough classification. You are a magnet for trouble. If there is anything dangerous within a ten-mile radius, it will invariably find you. " **

**xxxx**

"Again."

She rolled her eyes, as if I were putting her out: "Stop trying to deflect my question."

"I'm not. Read the passage again, and listen to what it's saying. Listen to what I'M saying."

It was the inquiry that came up time and again: "What makes me pretty to you?"

The question's sudden appearance was my fault. I should've never told her my eyes and ears and nose x-rayed through what most humans found beautiful or pleasing. That they shined an unforgiving light on most human appearances.

"Except yours," I amended when her mouth dropped open in horror.

"How am I the exception? What could possibly make me pretty to you?"

So many times I thought I'd answered this, from every possible angle:

"Everything about you attracts me." She found that answer lazy.

"Everything; and specifically, your eyes and lips and hair and skin." She wondered outloud if that meant I wasn't attracted to her body.

"Everything; and specifically, your eyes and lips and hair and skin and legs. Greatest legs this side of the equator." Which of course, teenaged girl hearing translated into a sign I found her breasts too small. And Brazilian and South African legs superior, since I limited my praise to only one side of the earth.

Bella was unlike any human I'd ever encountered. It was the very reason I was drawn to her again and again. But her insecurities were a reminder; that for all her jaded bravery, she was still a young girl in need of reassurance.

I wanted more than anything to give her just that. Reassurance in every sense of the word.

"The whole passage or just the last couple of lines?" Her voice shook me out of my inner thoughts.

"The last several lines will do. And listen carefully this time."

When the question came up again tonight, I told her to pull out The Little Prince. We were barely halfway through the story, yet one previous passage seemed to reiterate what I felt for her.

Bella began to change her position, but froze when my hand jolted forward like a traffic officer with a stop sign.

"What now, Edward?" Her voice showed the slightest tinge of annoyance. Bella wore petulance well, it made her lower lip pout out just so.

"Stay just as you are. Please."

She eased back into her original pose.

"Yes...just like that." I cringed at my own delivery of cliched words. All I needed was a camera, false declarations of being a professional photographer, and a rack of lingerie at Bella's disposal to complete the scene.

Bella eyed me suspiciously, smart girl that she was. She'd been lounging against her window sill in nothing but her night shirt. The same, shapeless shirt that barely hit her thighs and was now riding even a little past that. The full moon filtered in through the window, bright enough for her to read to me in the moonlight. Not to mention illuminating the slight curves that hid underneath that thin materal.

Beautiful and innocent and inviting. Warm too, even in the cool moonlight. I was taking a multitude of mental snapshots of her, just like this. They'd be the very images I'd withdraw from my memory for ages to come.

_Ages...._

I shook my head of such thoughts. The present was where I was now. It was where Bella was too. And she was beckoning me, this very minute with a gentle smile and quizzical stare.

"What are you thinking about right now, Edward?"

I ignored her inquiry: "Again."

Bella settled into the the passage I requested, mumbling about how my one word commands made me sound like a three year old tyrant.

Takes one to know one.

_**"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens."**_

Bella laughed on cue, like she did every time. Chicken jokes never grew old for her. "You're a little sicko, you know, making me read these lines to you."

"Read."

She heil hitlered me before continuing:

_**"All the chickens are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored."**_

The passage continued on, where the Fox explains the act of taming to the Little Prince: to establish ties. But it was the last sentence or three that were key:

**_The Fox said, "But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world..."_**

"There...right there is my answer to your question."

She looked down at the words again, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"You had to tame me first to make me stop long enough to see. The more you tame me, the more I see you. And the more lovely you become to me."

Bella smiled, but her eyebrows were still knitted. I silently went over my proud declaration again, wondering how I'd accidentally stepped onto another teenaged hearing landmine.

Was this not poetic enough for her? Anticlimatic even? Her romantic literature and DVD collection on the bookshelf in the corner seemed to think so. They all talked of instantaneous combustion at first sight. My words spoke of a more gradual onset.

I walked over and kneeled before her. She reached out her hand to me.

"Bella, I know that's not how your books told you it would be. But it means more that it happened this way for us. That first night --"

I couldn't refer to that night in any other way now. The memories of what I had planned to do, how I had set a trap up for her, were intolerable.

"--That night, your kindness was the first thing that struck me over the head. Your inner beauty. But everything else about you snowballed, came barreling towards me before I even realized what was happening. Now I spend half the night committing every line on your face to memory. That way when I'm apart from you during the other half, I can recreate you perfectly in my mind's eye."

Those eyebrows relaxed finally.

"I know your books told you it should have happened differently between us, that we did it backwards. But the books are wrong."

Bella's smile grew brilliant. She finally understood.

"Says the boy who proves his point....with a book."

"Well, the Fox and I? We're one and the same."

"You aren't the fox, Silly." She dropped to the floor beside me, plopping the book into my hands. "Read the next sentence."

**_"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower... I think that she has tamed me..."_**

I looked over at her; she fanned one hand full of fingers around the side of her head like petals. When she wanted to communicate something, something that made her feel vulnerable, she always enveloped it in humor. But the message was serious: she didn't see me as an animal in the process of taming, but as a man disarmed.

"I'm the prince? And you're a half plucked flower?" She nodded with a hearty laugh, then leaned in and kissed me, her fingers still petaled around her face.

Why couldn't we stay like this forever? Tucked inside her bedroom, reading and kissing and talking and kissing some more. And a little more than kissing even. Being frozen all these years was like a prison sentence. Being frozen with Bella sounded like heaven on earth.

But things weren't so simple anymore. In order to keep our refuge inside these four walls, I had to work harder at preserving it. My stare focused out the window now, knowing I needed to leave.

"What are you thinking about, Edward? You're in and out tonight." When I looked back in her direction, she stole a quick peck on the side of my check again. Her sudden bursts of affectionate energy were something I'd never get used to. At least I hoped I wouldn't.

"I was thinking about maybe freezing you for safe keeping." Freezing both of us, side by side, just like this.

Her grin turning mischievous. "What, you want to freeze-dry me like one of those dehydrated peas in a Cup-o-Noodles?"

She always had the good ideas.

"Why hadn't I thought of that? Preserving you like a little pea in my pocket for years to come, then reconstituting you with some hot water when I can't take it any longer."

That sounded less endearing when said aloud, but Bella rolled with it: "The Prince and the Pea: A Reinterpretation By Wes Craven."

My arms circled her like a life preserver. And I wanted to bury my face into the side of her neck, feeling her warm skin on my lips and hard collarbone on my jaw and silky strands of hair against my cheek. So many sensations all at once, and all from Bella. But I couldn't. Not right now when I desperately needed to bury my mouth into the neck of another. My mouth pooled at the thought of the prey that awaited me outside, just beyond the border of the forest.

"And you say I'm a sicko. " I looked down, expecting to catch a mischievous grin. Instead I was met with sober, downcast eyes. Was it hard for her to stay in the present too, just like it was for me? Wondering how long the present would allow this to continue?

I tried to bring her back into the moment: "You wouldn't mind being a pea in my pocket for ages to come? It's a possibility then?"

Bella nodded, still refusing to let even a slight giggle free: "I'm the dehydrated pea to your dehydrated carrot in the Cup-o-Noodles of life. Peas and carrots go together swell, you know."

I knew too well. A quick flash spirited through my head, of preserving her in a very different manner. I banished it quickly though.

Not for Bella. Never for Bella.

**xxxx**

She asked me to stay, even though she knew I couldn't. It wasn't my choice at this point to make. Come to bed, "just for a minute or two," she would say. And then pout when her attempts proved futile.

Nothing made me happier too, because it meant I was doing my job. If the only things upsetting Bella at night were about how pretty she was or whether I should stay longer, I'd succeeded. These were the things a nineteen year old girl should be fixating on. It was proof that our refuge was intact and protected from the forces just outside her window.

There were many.

The minute I declared war on IT and everything else that conspired against Bella, "everything" seemed to come out of the woodwork for roll call. In just the last week, near misses on the road were in the double digits. I was driving like the Road Warrior now, heading off potential side impact collisions, front impact collisions, back end collisions.

And that was just getting her to and from work.

Not all forces were outside her door either. My hunger was spiking as Bella and I built up ground rules inside her bedroom, only to silently undermine them. We meant well, with our designated limits to keep Bella safe and me in control. Limits on how long I kissed her, limits on how long I laid beside her, limits on how much contact we allowed.

But darkness played tricks on honorable intentions. Silence too. I didn't say a word when Bella came to bed one night without any pj bottoms on, her naked legs peeking out from under her night shirt mid - thigh. It was the same night I declared her legs the best this side of the equator. A bold move for Bella, one she would have never attempted in the harsh light of day. But in silent, moon-bathed darkness? She felt emboldened.

Bella didn't say a word when I began tugging on that maddening night shirt to surrender more to me. Past the collarbone to the rounded flesh on her shoulder with my lips. Downwards, my finger documenting the number of grooves between her ribs before I hit soft flesh in pairs. The more we didn't acknowledge what we were doing, what we were breaking, the more we quietly hoped it wouldn't be a problem.

The sheer amount of animal carcasses that were strewn throughout the woods weekly said otherwise though.

It was a vicious cycle I found myself in. The more I wanted her, the more hungry I became. The more I tried to satisfy my hungers in what limited ways I could, the more frustrated I was. Flicking a finger down her shirt was the equivalent of eating a stray dog when it came to hunger. They only made me realize what I wanted most:

Real satiation.

None of this half-baked vegetarian living and loving. I wanted real blood, real sex. My only consolation was that these were internal forces I could reason with, talk down from the ledge. Everything else demanded brute force or cunning.

Many eyes were watching me now; not least of all, Carlisle and the tribe. The minute I returned home after the disaster at Charlie's house, Esme took me aside.

"We need to know everything, now. Don't hold one detail back. Threatening to kill one of their own after they catch you in the chief of police's daugther's bedroom? What happened to being careful?"

Careful. I had promised Carlisle and Esme to be careful with this new friendship I was forging with an outsider. Only after I refused to give her up, of course.

Before I knew it, we were heading down the highway to the borderline. "Their kind" would be waiting for us, and Carlisle and Esme took turns needling me with questions so that they could speak for "our kind."

"Why did you threaten them?"

I explained they bolted into Bella's bedroom, two young shifters, barely able to control their phasing.

"In a small room with a small girl in the middle of us both. You two understand what could have happened if I hadn't acted right away."

Carlisle nodded soberly.

"Were you coercing her in anyway? Was she struggling?" Esme's voice cracked while inquiring.

I tried to contain my flaring anger and answered the questions. That we were joking on the floor when they came in, and the young shifters misunderstood. I misunderstood too, taking no chances and suspending both of us midair in the bedroom.

"I thought she was under attack. I was trying to protect her. "

"But how were you joking on the floor with her exactly, Edward?" Carlisle looked me square in the eye now. "The charges against you are murky, because they aren't sure what was going on between you and the girl. I need to go in there with the truth. Now is not the time to be coy."

This was the hard part. Where the truth would be diluted, even twisted. The first time I'd done so with them since I fell in a very different way years before. I had no choice though, what was blossoming between Bella and I could not be repeated to anyone. To repeat it would mean to start back at the beginning, of how we began. Something that broke the treaty, something that would make Carlisle and Esme lose all faith in what it was we had now.

"It's our secret," Bella had stressed earlier."It doesn't matter how we became close, or how close we are now, they won't understand. Just keep things simple. We are friends. You've saved me from harm before, that it was simply instinct for you to do it again this evening."

"Okay." Esme nodded cautiously after I regurgitated Bella's words." I understand that, Edward. But why were you going to her home for dinner with her father in the first place? Why is she not in a shock-fueled coma right now, after what she's been through tonight?"

"She knows about me. About us." An answer neither of them wanted to hear.

"And the tribe can't use that against me, because they showed their hand as well tonight, right before her eyes. Bottom line is, I saved a girl from being hurt, because a pair of puppies were too eager to play hero. That is the only truth that matters in the end."

Spoken like a true politician - knee-deep in a cover-up.

We met three tribe elders at the boundary line. Sue Clearwater was standing next to them. Her eyes bored into me as Carlisle and the tribal leader spoke in hushed tones. Carlisle pleaded my case eloquently; relayed to them how I had saved her before, and thought I was saving her again this evening.

"I can assure you this will not happen again in the future," Esme added. "Edward has been counseled to steer clear of such places from here on out."

The elders looked at one another before speaking. "We talked to Bella minutes ago. Her story aligns with his account. Our concerns at this point are this."

The leader gave Sue a slight nod. I knew where this was heading before he even spoke.

"Your charge is young, but how old is he in real years? How much control does he have?"

Having Carlisle answer everything made me feel like a child. I piped up before he could respond.

"I've been around long enough to have met with your forefathers, and see the treaty signed. And I've been around long enough to know that the two children that barged into Bella's room were too young to control their phasing. I'm in total control of myself, and took control of the situation this evening for the sake of Bella's safety."

Carlisle shook his head slightly, urging me to keep quiet before facing them again. "Edward was turned long ago, before your grandfather's time. He's the head of our family after Esme and I."

"Yes, " the tribe elder said with a nod, "that was one point of concern I was getting at. How mature a changeling he is. There is one more issue at hand though." He turned towards me with a fixed stare.

"You are old enough to have known my forefathers, and witnessed two world wars. So how come you've taken such an interest in Bella, a girl who can be no match for your experience and intellect? What can be the draw for you, to the point that you're found carelessly rolling around with her on the bedroom floor of her father's house?"

This was why Carlisle wanted me to shut up. I walked right into this, showing my hand too hastily like a love-sick school boy. My mind raced to maintain some composure.

"Truthfully? Bella and I made a connection over the oddest of shared experiences: being left behind by our mothers, when our mothers would have moved heaven and earth to stay with us." Of course I was leaving out most of the details, but this was the truth. That first night, Bella's cries for her mother foiled all ill plans I had for her. And my confession about my own softened Bella's heart towards me in kind.

"Bella doesn't have her mother anymore. Her father is protective and loving, but doesn't see everything as it is. Wouldn't you agree, Sue?"

Sue looked down at her hands, the very hands that caused the poor man to own a huge concussion post-head beating by her.

"Charlie can protect her from things of his world. But I can protect her from things of our world."

The tribal leader seemed unmoved.

"How noble of you. And she gives nothing to you back in return? Other than your insertion into her life, what things from "our" world are weighing on her so badly?"

An opening. The elder gave me an opening to bypass the romantic question.

"There are visitors coming, which is my primary concern for her at the moment. A small band of our kind. " I looked over at Esme, who encouraged me with a nod. "They are small in numbers, but don't abstain and seem unpredictable."

Here was where I would go off script, and deflect as best I could: " Bella's home lays right in the path of the woods. And as we can both attest to, Bella seems to gravitate toward our world more than a normal girl. Our family is keeping tabs, surveying the area for any signs of their arrival. But I went to Bella's home tonight to see if Charlie's house would be in the possible line of fire with their arrival."

A boldfaced lie. But I never asked for anyone to pry this far once I finally found an existence outside my family.

Sue smirked, didn't buy a thing I was saying. But the elders' attention quickly changed from Bella to the threat of visitors. Within minutes, Carlisle and their leader were in talks of how to deal with the situation. Carlisle emphasized we would be the first to make contact with them, explain what we needed from them if they stayed in this area. An initial greeting with the shifters would be unnecessarily confrontational. If they proved unreasonable however, we would contact the tribe immediately to relay the news.

The issue of Bella and me got lost in the shuffle. For the time being I was off the hook. But Sue stared me down as we bid good-bye, a silent promise that this wasn't the end, and I had failed to convince her of anything.

Esme stepped up beside me, grabbed my hand, and stared glacially back in her direction.

Sue looked away first.

**xxxx**

_"Sweet little face with a sweet little mouth, that could wrap sweetly around my --"_

The disembodied voice lingered out from the corridors inside the grief support meeting. I had to concentrate very hard to focus all my attention in one particular area like this while shutting down the other voices in the packed hospital building. If I had my way? I'd go inside, find the body attached to those thoughts, make him apologize to Bella, and then rip his head off at the spinal cord.

But Bella would scold me for proving the chaplain right when he requested that her "friend" stop scaring the patrons with his "intense" presence. I was relegated to the parking lot now, only able to hear from the outside what was happening on the inside.

Watching from a distance was how I was spending a lot of my days lately. And being watched too.

No longer could I linger in Bella's bedroom all night, and stumble back into my house at dawn. I had to live up to what I had presented back at the border with the elders: an noble, eagle eyed protector surveying the land nightly for the visitors' eventual appearance. I left Bella before the sun rose now.

Carlisle and the rest of the family eagle-eyed me in turn, gauging my every movement with an annoying sense of gravity. But I played along, never giving anything away that I didn't want to.

Bella did the same. She tried to patch things up with Sue and her family, making them a special dinner the week after. Her father had little memory of that night. What little he did remember was pushed back to the deepest corners of his mind. Daughters suspended in midair with the devil himself was easily blamed on head trauma and pain medications.

Bella kept all her dinner and lunch dates with her dad. She did her business as usual among the watchful eyes of the tribe: school, work, therapy with her father, interning at the grief counseling.

Grief counseling. Some thoughts seeping out of that fourth floor room were anything but mournful.

_"Just a little higher, honey. Cross that leg just a little higher. Just....like....that."_

I told her to she shouldn't wear skirts anymore to the meetings. Most of the attendees were there for legitimate reasons; but others walked in from off the street, taking advantage of a warm room, free food, and pretty scenery in skirts that rode up too easily. It turned their thoughts foul quickly, which in turn put me in a foul mood. Which made Bella more insistent on keeping certain rules enforced for my own sanity:

1) No following her to school

2) That went double for the therapy sessions in Port Angeles after I violated that rule weeks earlier

3) I was only allowed as far as the parking lot of her internship with the chaplain at the hospital

"And that's only because some of the dudes that show up are a little creepy," Bella confessed.

If she only knew the half of it.

And definitely no more grand public gestures at her work. Night jaunts were put on hold as well, until suspicions surrounding us settled.

Our time in her room was our last refuge now, thanks to her roommate. Emily, it turned out, was our greatest ally of all. And she wasn't even aware to what extent.

**xx**

Emily confronted Bella the night after everything happened at Charlies house, while I listened behind Bella's bedroom door. A tribe member or three had contacted her. Asked for any details she could offer about Bella, and anyone else she'd been hanging around lately.

"I didn't tell them anything, Bella," Emily reassured. "But you and I know that things have been off for weeks. You need to tell me what's going on."

Bella took a deep breath:"Remember that blind date I had awhile back that was a no-show? Well, let's just say the story didn't end there."

The words rushed out before I could stop her - before she could stop herself. She confessed as much as she could without spelling it out for her roommate. Spoke of me and us in general terms that allowed Emily to decide how deeply she wanted to dive into this tale. I was different, Bella explained, but so was she after everything that happened to her in the last year.

"I know, Bella. I know." Emily took her hand and guided her to the couch where Bella told her more of what she could.

"His being different and my being different? Makes us feel not so different anymore in the scheme of things."

Emily listened in silence before she finally responded. "He's _very_ different though, isn't he?"

Bella didn't answer.

"I hear his voice at night, it's very soothing. But you never open a door for him, Bella. Only a window. I catch a sweet scent when he's been here, even after he's left. Too sweet, for a young man. And a part of me knew I should warn others, since warning you would prove futile. I hear your voice at night too, and it's laughing again. Giddy, even in whispers."

Bella tried to speak up, but Emily shushed her. "I want you to be happy, but I need you to be safe. As long as one accompanies the other, I won't question you. At least for now."

Don't ask, don't tell. That was what Emily was proposing, given the fact she was stuck between two sets of loved ones. As long as I didn't make my presence known, either directly or by way of upsetting Bella's life, she would pretend she saw and knew nothing.

Even when her aunt pressed her. "And she will," Emily added.

Which was the important detail to Emily's alliance with us. Emily was Sue's niece and from the same lineage as her shifting cousins. She hadn't phased, didn't show any signs of doing so. But she carried the same blood, and a few qualities that came with it.

"Alice can't see us at night when Emily's around? It really blanks out her visions when we're near her?"

Exactly. Emily proved invaluable on two fronts as a cohort. She reassured the tribe that nothing seemed amiss their apartment. And she kept my family out of Bella's bedroom, no matter how hard Alice attempted to break in mentally.

**xx**

9:00 PM. I honed in once more towards that fourth floor room: the shuffling of voices and thoughts and chairs flooded my brain.

_"Sweet little---"_

The meeting was over, and there was little reason to listen to the parting, perverted thoughts of some of the party crashers. I began to shut down my mental hearing.

_"Sweet as cherries, indeed."_

A second voice. Responding to the first.

_"Taking her sweet little legs to the stairwell instead of the elevator. Come on."_

My feet moved on their own accord, out of my car, and towards the hospital entrance. I needed to find Bella. The sliding doors opened, and a wave of silent voices overtook me.

_I need to get milk on the way home. _

_If I soak it in Spray and Wash for an hour, it should come out._

_Jake told me he would call hours ago._

_I wonder if she parked in the same spot again tonight._

That voice again. It knew her car, her parking habits even.

I ran too quickly towards the stairwell opening, not even trying to hide the unnatural speed. A set of heels were clicking down steps from several levels up. Softer shoesteps followed.

"Bella!" My voice rang out frantically, reaching out to the upper levels.

"Edward?"

_Wait, wait. Wait a second._

He was in here. I could hear him.

"Bella! I'm coming right now. Stay where you are!"

A stairwell door opened quietly some floors above me, then closed.

I flung myself up the next two flights within seconds, barreling into Bella. My hands reached out, picked her up mid-fall, and overcorrected by squashing her into my chest tightly.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where's the fire?" Bella was laughing, oblivious to everything going on.

"Promise me, you will never, NEVER take the stairwell again. You got that?" I looked upward trying to see if I could hone into the voices once more, but I was too agitated to focus well enough.

"It's okay, I'm fine." She took in my appearance, concerned by what she saw. "I needed the exercise and there was a long wait for the elevator.

She placed both hands on my cheeks, her thumbs brushing back and forth softly. "How did you know I took the stairwell? What's wrong?"

"Stay right here. Don't move."

I flew up the steps to the floor where I heard the door open earlier. It was the maternity ward floor, and it was crowded and bustling with bodies. Joyous, loving thoughts assaulted me left and right, but those two voices weren't among the crowd. I focused hard, trying to catch any sign in the air of their presence.

Nothing.

Bella was right where I left her, her foot tapping nervously. She threw her hands around my neck in concern. "Wow, honey, it's okay. I'm okay. Really." Her voice was low and soothing, like a mother reassuring a child.

"Bella, this is important. Who was in the meeting tonight? Were any of them talking amongst themselves?"

I needed a face to go with those voices. Something more tangent to work with....

"Edward." Bella's voice was firm, rough even. She waited until I was looking at her. "No more. Punch out for the night. I'm serious."

I tried to make her understand. Two voices. Similar unsavory thoughts, watching her every move.

"What unsavory thoughts, Edward?"

I mentioned the fixation with her skirt rising, all his cooing and encouragement. Bella rolled her eyes.

"You did the same thing just the other night when I was reading to you. Guys are pervs, especially when they're bored. Hardly headline news."

I shot back with the fact that two of them were watching her head to the stairwell alone.

"Everyone watched me. I announced I was taking the stairs after seeing the line to use the elevator."

My last attempt to make her understand fell flat as well.

"Most people know where I park because we all head down at the same time. There's a logical answer for everything here. Please don't let this take over our night again. "

Again?

"I know you want to keep me safe. But part of keeping me safe is letting us enjoy what we want to protect in the first place, Edward."

She had a point.

I took her hand in mine and led her down the stairs. "I know it's early. But what if we go home and get into bed and read a little? Maybe some Sense and Sensibility?"

Her eyes lit up. "Do I get to pick the voices? Like a late night talk show host theme? Maybe Elinor and Marianne as played by Jay Leno and Craig Ferguson?"

This was what she wanted from me right now. Not the almighty protector that I had sworn to be in front of family and tribesman. She wanted the seventeen year old boy who bought her Gerber Daisies and kissed her longer than he should and tried to sneak peeks at her legs while she read to him in her nightshirt.

So many roles to juggle right now, and I was never sure which uniform was the most important to wear at any given moment.

"I think that can be arranged. As long as you let me chain myself to you in return. That would make everything easier."

She laughed as if I were joking.

"I'm game. Let's buy a two-way leash though. It's the perfect gift for the couple who isn't sure who's the pet or the owner from one second to the next."

Like I said, she always had the good ideas.

She continued cracking jokes all the way out to her car. I joined her with some gentle ribbing, which made her even happier. We were back in our little cocoon once again, just us two, and the world was quickly draining into the background.

But a small part of me was elsewhere, straining to hear those voices with a new set of ears. A set that could take Bella's clarifications into account. Would it change how I felt about their intentions?

I wasn't sure. Just like I wasn't sure of anything I was doing these days when it came to Bella.

.

**xxxx**

**"You've Got Me On A Leash, A Damn Damn Leash,**

**And It's Hard Enough To Be Myself."**

** -Be Your Own Pet, "Damn Damn Leash"  
**

a/n: This was a weird place to break up the chapter I think, but I'll post the second part of this chapter next week. Thanks!


	13. You Are The Perfect Drug

**Chapter 12: You Are The Perfect Drug**

**a/n:** Thanks for all the reviews, lovelies!

**a/n:** Lyrical quote and chapter title from Nine Inch Nails' "You Are The Perfect Drug." The song link is on my profile.

**a/n:** This chapter references an event from chapter 8, where Alice visited Bella at work to warn her of the danger she was in with Edward and her family. She had Jasper lure Edward away for several minutes while she talked to Bella, to keep Edward from hearing her thoughts and location.

**xxx**

**Twilight quote, p. 164: "Sometimes I have a problem with my temper, Bella."  
**

******xxx**

(a/n: This is picking up right where the last update left off since it was originally one chapter. The last update ended with Edward checking up on Bella inside the hospital stairwell after hearing some disturbing thoughts from inside):

"I'm just trying to live in the moment, that's all."

Bella's chin upturned juuust so to make her look even more smug than she sounded. It was enough to make me want to put a fist through a wall. Or maybe the glass window, for more dramatic effect. I had too much energy, too much emotion, vibrating just underneath my skin - and no where to release it.

It started out innocently enough. I had her drive home with me, promising to pick up that deathtrap of a truck and hand deliver it to her apartment by sunrise. She tried to oblige me with a smile. But then I tipped the scales, repeating warnings of stairwells and hospitals and riff raff that loitered around such places.

Bella bit her lip in frustration: "Well, hey; if a girl has to put herself in danger, a stairwell just ten feet from an emergency room is the way to do it. They wouldn't even have to cart me in with a gurney, just kick roll me up to registration."

That flippancy. That damn flippancy of hers. It was the very thing that disarmed me in the first place. It's hard to be a good monster when you bare your teeth at a girl who only shrugs back at you. It was the very thing that filled our evenings with laughter inside her bedroom walls, and made us smile at the absurdity of what had transpired between us.

But outside in the real world? Her flippant ways were going to be her undoing, as well as mine.

I called her on it. She snapped right back, declaring that I was the flip side of the same coin: "I may be careless, but you overcorrect. With scorched-earth tendencies."

Back and forth we went. Until we were here, inside our hallowed bedroom walls once more. But they couldn't insulate us from the outside tonight, the world was seeping through it's cracks.

"Living in the moment? I'm not sure what sort of hakuna matata delusions you entertain about yourself, but they're dead wrong. You aren't living in the moment, Bella. You're flinging yourself into moments you could avoid all together."

Her eyes fired up, ready to meet the challenge.

"No, that's YOU. Flinging yourself into moments that are non-ex-ist-ent." She sounded out each syllable as if I were a simpleton. "How many times have you scared off people at the group sessions? You were batting over a dozen by the time the chaplain put his foot down. Don't tell me every single one of them meant to do me harm."

"And you just made my point. It only takes ONE. And you refuse to do even the basic precautions."

Fighting with Bella was very similar to flirting with her, with one exception. Our rapid fire back and forth was now directed against one another, instead of the "thems" of the world.

"Yes, it takes just one, Edward. And not even a very impressive one at that. I'm small and slow - not strong at all. And I went beyond the basic precautions for months, shutting myself up in my bedroom most of the time. Until one day, I couldn't feel the difference between living and dying. If someone is hellbent on taking me out, I don't have the power to stop it. All I have the power to do is face it on my own terms."

Bella backed away from me, then bowed slightly. Her bow swept to the side and turned into a pirouette. Which turned into several. "I told you my mom made me take ballet lessons for ten years, right?"

Of course.

She spun faster now, forming a continuous but lopsided circle in the middle of her bedroom. "And I still suck ass. One guess at what I'm doing."

Always trying to distract me from the issues at hand.

"Bella, stop, please--"

"Guess." She wasn't going to play nice until I humored her. The turns were out of control now, she was getting dizzy.

"Ballet."

"My dance teacher would beg to differ." She stopped suddenly, her legs wobbly as she smiled at me. "That's my take on the death march. IT's not going to drag me to the grave, kicking and screaming and begging. I'm going to pirouette in feet first, staring IT square in the eye with a smile."

My insides turned at the morbid display before me. Of a young, beautiful girl so hellbent on meeting death, and thinking I'd be impressed by that fact.

But who was I to talk? I was an undead monster who courted her with flowers like a real boy. It was so hard figuring out how to close the gap between our worlds. Was the gap between us so large, any attempt on her part to close it would end in her losing everything she had to offer?

My hands reached out to grip hers, silently wishing I had the strength to shake her out of this dance we started together. She laughed, thinking I was playing, until I backed her into the wall corner with a firm grip. When her legs tried to move, I locked them in between my knees. She needed to hear me, no more game playing.

"You're proud of this attitude? Of not only laying down for IT to get you, but handing IT the shovel as well?"

Her smile waned as the harshness of my tone set in. "What else can I do?"

"What else can you do? You can actually fight. I want you to kick and scream and yell as loud as you can, so I can always hear you. I can't do this all by myself. I can't spend every waking moment wondering how I can keep you safe, only to watch you dance past me into oncoming traffic. Don't leave me behind, not after everything we've done to get here."

Her eyes narrowed as she tried to wrangle her wrists free. Her knee shot out, jabbing me hard in the thigh.

"That's the spirit. That's what I expect from you, nothing less either."

Bella smirked in response as her limbs went limp. She flung her head back against the wall, arching out her back slowly. Slowly enough for me to watch her breasts brush up against my chest, and not do a damn thing to avoid it. It was something I tried to prevent on my watch, hovering over her night after night. Too much of our bodies pressed against eachother at one time always seemed like a bad idea. Rubbing up against me the way she was doing in slow arching waves? Positively lethal.

Especially when I should have left hours earlier to feed.

With all the strength I could conjure up, my feet backed up a step to break contact. Bella's smirk melted into a weary smile.

"I didn't even have to scream to make you retreat, did I? We all have our different ways of fighting, Edward." She leaned in for a kiss; it was hard and desperate, unlike one we ever shared before. Her lips and tongue commanded, pressing and pushing against me, inside me. Abruptly she stopped, dragging her lips to my earlobe. Her voice was breathless and soft:

"The only way I can fight IT is to never blink, no matter what IT dangles in front of me. The minute I show that I care enough to blink, IT will take me. I just know it."

"Why are you whispering?" I tried to pull back so that I could look into her eyes, but she only tugged me closer.

"I don't want IT to hear." She nuzzled in farther, until her lips were pressed firmly against my ear. "You're the only thing IT could use against me. Only you could make me blink."

My legs buckled, until I was sitting on the floor Indian style, with Bella in my arms and lap. I rocked her back and forth.

"Oh, Bella....Oh, Bella." Again and again, I wailed out those words. It was the only thing I could do. I didn't know who I was fighting anymore: a faceless entity that Bella was on guard against all day and night. Or something closer, more familiar than I ever wanted to imagine: Bella herself.

**xx**

Knock knock knock.

It had been hours since she'd fallen asleep. But everytime I had tried to manuever out of her embrace, she startled herself awake.

Knock knock knock.

"Edward?"

Her roommate. I tried once more to untangle our arms and slide off the bed without her waking. My hand twisted the doorknob, only to be chastised.

"No, don't open the door." Her hushed voice from the other side of the door was faint. "Is she asleep?"

I put my ear to the door: "Yes."

"She didn't sleep for months, you know. Tip-toed around the apartment all night, driving me crazy. Now she sleeps like a log. No nightmares even."

I didn't answer right away. Her thoughts were coming at me a mile a minute, chaotic and unformed. She was scared, but her voice didn't betray the fact.

"Finish this line for me: _Golden slumbers fill your eyes, smiles awake you when you rise..._"

What was with the roomies and on-the-spot game show questions tonight?

Beatles. Golden Slumbers.

"Sing the next line," she urged.

I cleared my throat before obeying: "_Sleep pretty darling, do not cry. And I will sing you a lullaby_."

"I knew it." Her voice was equal parts satisfaction and concern. "It was you the whole time. You sang that song to her, over and over again, soothing her night terrors. Long before she even realized it, huh? Other songs too, unfamiliar to me, from another time."

"Another time _and_ place," I corrected.

"I thought you were her guardian angel for weeks, months maybe." She laughed wistfully. "Only Renee could have strong-armed an angel to swoop down and sing to her baby nightly. And to think it was a demon all along, with a siren's voice...."

Her voice hardened suddenly.

"It's the only reason I haven't given you up to them. You could have hurt her already if you meant to, but you haven't. Instead you sing to her when she's asleep, and make her laugh when she's awake."

I answered with silence, not sure what would set her off.

"Your tribe tries hard to be good, yes? And you try harder even, for Bella?"

"Yes." My face pressed against the door, conjuring up long dormant memories of myself before the turning. Of an old, wooden confession box, surrounded by pews and stained glass windows. Of dust collecting on the wooden seat, and the priest's quiet voice on the other side, absolving me of my sins for the week.

Emily had no such intentions. She was here to highlight them.

"I do want to be good. And I want to be good for Bella. She is my closest friend....ever. From any place or time."

Emily let out a drawn sigh.

"I used to listen to you two all night long, your voices shooting back and forth, talking like long lost friends. Are you a good friend to her?"

"I try to be." Emily was slowly tying a rope around my neck with her line of questioning and I wasn't going to give her anymore rope than I needed to.

"You know she's broken too? In ways that might not be fixable, no matter how much you sing and make her laugh?"

I closed my eyes at the implications. That not all of Bella's problems were coming from the outside. Even Emily understood this. Some of them might be contained inside the very face I etched in mind whenever she was away from me.

"Yes."

"Here's what scares me the most. Bella thinks of you as a real boy. Do you see that?"

"Sometimes she forgets, yes." Her thoughts turned angry with my admission.

"You aren't a real boy though. And the minute you forget along with Bella, I will give you up to the others. Do we understand eachother?"

I tried to open the door, wanting to talk to her face to face. It was too easy to be adversarial like this, behind wooden panels. But she shoved the door back, closing it again.

"No, don't open the door. I never want to see you. Your kind's first line of offense is your beauty. If I never see you, I won't get careless. I'll always remember what you are."

How could I argue with her?

"You don't trust me, and yet you are putting so much faith in me. I don't understand."

She paused before answering, no doubt trying to find just the right words to not give too much away, just like me.

"I don't have much of a choice. I may not trust you, but I'd trust Bella even less right now if you were taken from her. My tribe won't understand that. Sometimes, you just have to work with what you're given and pray for the best."

She didn't bid me good-bye. Emily simply walked away, her mind flooded with doubts that she was doing the right thing.

**xxx**

"Oh, God, don't start again." I hovered over Bella as she lay on her bed, trying to sell her on the two-way leash once more. The subject came up every time I had to keep my end of our renegotiated bargain. I was to let her go in peace, whether it was school; or as was the case today, her therapy sessions with the Chief. In turn, she promised no more stairwells. And most importantly, kicking and screaming when the situation insisted upon it.

"And definitely no pirouettes. You'd probably break your neck all by yourself without IT having to lift a finger."

And I was only half joking.

Renegotiated bargains didn't restrict me from making it harder to leave me behind in the first place though, especially when two-way leashes existed.

"Come on, stop having so closed minded. The one I found had a five star rating on Petsmart's online store. Wilson Bubba from Wake Forest, North Carolina said it was a lifesaver and worth every penny of it's 13.99 tag price."

She only shook her head. "What kind of monster wastes his time reading consumer product reviews? All that power and strength and beauty at your finger tips, and you're stuck in front of a computer monitor like every other schlub? Way to get your monster pass revoked."

I wished my free time was spent so uselessly when she was away. But there were many bases to cover now in order to cover our relationship; hunting, at the moment, taking precedence above all others. The thirst that coursed through me was steadily climbing, and I had to satiate it with what little sustenance I was afforded.

"Monster pass revoking be damned, I want to buy us a leash."

Bella attempted to look put out, but I could see the hint of a smile just underneath it.

"Tell you what, you little freak. You can buy the two way leash--"

I clenched my fists in victory, only to be stopped with a conditional finger waving in my face.

"I SAID, you can buy the two way leash, IF I can buy one of those dog coneheads for you to wear."

Conehead?

"You know, those things that look like a dog got it's head stuck in a megaphone? So they can't lick or scratch or bite themselves?"

Blank stare from my end. "Why would you want to buy me one of those?"

She stared at me as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Which it was.

"If you wore one of those coneheads, you wouldn't have to worry about biting me ever again and then I could ravish you nightly without a care in the world."

Not the image I needed in my mind right now. I'd missed feeding this morning and needed very little encouragement to make my mouth pool like it was right now.

She was soon on her way, but not before reassuring me she'd drive slowly through the heavy rain. I was on my way too, trying to figure out which daily given I should cross off my to-do checklist: feed, survey the area for the visitors, keep my family appeased and at arm's length by spending more time at home, feed again. And going home to see if someone wanted to hunt with me?

Two birds, one stone.

I parked in the driveway, checking out the garage first to see if Emmett was inside. Instead, I found Alice. We hadn't spoken for weeks after her little stunt at Bella's workplace. She could beat the Cullen system of security checks and balances when she worked alone. But she had incorporated Jasper, a fatal mistake in her plans to meddle covertly. I knew something was wrong when Jasper picked me up with a sorry excuse and kept talking. Jasper never kept talking, and his mental musings of ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall only confirmed my suspicions.

It didn't take me more than a minute to piece together the puzzle once Jasper dropped me back off at the movie theater. A quick scan of Bella's coworker's thoughts dredged up musings on a "beautiful-black-haired girl" as she counted totals from the register. How the girl commandeered Bella's bathroom break, and made her cry with soft words and a fierce smile. How it all ended so abruptly, with a hand shake that seemed more intimate than a familial hug.

When Bella busted through the theater doors minutes later with her natural fragrance unleashed and her hair let loose, all I could think was: Alice was responsible for this.

"You tipped the scale's balance," I told her later on that night. "We were navigating a very fine line of friendship up until tonight. And you tipped the scales by meddling."

Alice was baffled when I told her what Bella had pulled during the movie.

"That's not what I intended. How the hell was I suppossed to know threats would only encourage her?"

"Because you don't know one damn thing about her. And still you inserted yourself without a second thought, making threats towards a helpless girl. Do you realize what you've done? What you've set off?"

She did. Which was why she had avoided me ever since - until now.

I was about to turn around in the other direction without another word, when I noticed something was off. Alice's face was contorting, her breath shooting out unevenly. As if she were tearlessly crying.

"Why are you here?" She inquired aghast. An early evening home visit like this was rare. But it didn't garner so much concern. "Why aren't you with......Where's Bella?"

"She's gone out for awhile--"

"Where is she?" It wasn't a question so much as a command.

"Port Angeles," I answered, trying to scan her thoughts. They were blocked with Old Mother Hubbard rhyming on constant loop. Her face twisted again in pain.

"Alice, what's going on?"

"I saw something bad. I saw..... Bella."

Alice wouldn't elaborate. To elaborate meant to seal the vision's fate in her eyes, but she'd said enough. I raced to my car, yelling back to pick up her cell when I called. I peeled out of our driveway, already muddy from the heavy downpour.

"What did you see, Alice?"

"I'm not sure." She described the brief scene that flashed before her, even if she wouldn't tell me how it ended: Back of a building, an alley possibly. Bella. Voices - more than one. Darkness. Danger.

"But the rain, I couldn't see much with all the rain."

Like the rain pouring down right now.

"Please, Alice," I begged. "Think hard, I need an exact location."

My mind raced alongside my car towards the building that housed Bella's therapy sessions. Phonecalls to Bella's cell went unanswered.

"Alice, take down her father's number. Call him, and find out if he's with Bella or not. Say you're a friend."

I made it to Port Angeles in record time, and scouted the parking lot. Alice called back quickly.

"Her father said he's working late. That by the time he got through to Bella, she had already made the trip to Port Angeles. He isn't sure if she went to the session alone or not. But she's got to be in town, Edward. You're in the right vicinity."

Not right enough. There was no sign of her red truck anywhere. What I wouldn't have given to be able to cry or dry heave right now, to expel everything bottling up. Instead it just coagulated within, making it impossible to move or think properly. Alice's words were the only lifeline that I had to hold onto.

"Edward, please stay with me. I'll help you find her. We have to think like Bella now."

I wanted to laugh. Thinking like Bella was impossible, she was so unpredictable.

"What places did Bella visit when she went into town?"

My mind picked over past conversations. Vague references to a health food store and a nearby bookstore were the only things that stood out. Alice mapped the location down online for me.

"There's a Strand's bookstore and a Crazy Oat's health market almost side by side to eachother. Just four streets north from where you are right now, on Third Street."

My senses were too cut off in the car, I needed to search on foot. Alice repeated to me what she saw one last time: darkness, backstreets, rain, voices, more than one. And Bella in the middle of it all.

"Wait, Edward. Don't hang up yet. Please remember--"

Now was not the time for her quaint sayings.

"I know , I know Alice. Remember who I am, not just what I am."

"NO, Edward. Remember WHAT you are tonight. Please."

My finger pushed the "end" button without answering.

I started running in the direction Alice had pointed me in, hoping to pick up on any markers along the way. I tried to catch scent trails, or tire marks in the muddy streets.

Nothing. The rain was washing away all evidence of her.

_Washing away all evidence of her... _I shook my head of such thoughts.

My ears focused, hoping against hope she remembered what I asked of her: "Kick and fight and yell and scream so I can hear you, Bella. Just like you promised me."

Only silence......except for a familiar voice among the hundreds that were accosting me on the street corner.

_"Hey, hey. You work at the hospital right? Wait, wait, where are you going?"_

Gravelly, wanton, up to no good. I focused on it harder, hoping to tap into its inner voice as well:

_"Sweet little mouth, even when it frowns..."_

That voice - that voice from the hospital.

My feet propelled me in it's direction. It was coming from four streets down, behind the strip mall with a neon lights. My body reacted to what awaited me: mouth pooling, hands shaking, ready to turn a predator into prey.

_"No...no...honey. Don't even think about screaming. Just...fuck, you stupid bitch, you broke skin..."_

She was fighting.

"Edward!"

It was almost like an introduction. I rounded the corner into the back alley just as the word left her lips. Bella's mouth dropped open in disbelief when she saw me. Her lip was marked with crimson, it's blood scent almost knocking me over, it was so strong. I stopped breathing, trying to focus on the perpetrators instead. Three total. Two looking on as another pinned Bella to the wall with a hand to her shoulder.

If I had gotten here just a minute or two later....

I didn't say a word. No commands to free her were voiced. She was already liberated and she knew it. Instead I stomped on each of their knee caps in quick succession, rendering them immobile. They fell down like squealing pigs, while Bella shot into my arms and wouldn't let go.

"Leave them. We'll call the police. I'll make something up so they won't know it was you. Leave them alone and just take me home....."

She didn't have to ask me twice, they weren't going anywhere soon.

We raced back to my car as I held her in my arms, kissing and thanking her over and over again for doing what she'd promised: "You kicked and screamed and yelled and even bit."

She laughed in response, which was both disconcerting and comforting. Bella wasn't in shock, yet she should have been. But that was for another day to ponder over. Right now, she was safe in my arms, warm and breathing and okay. I nuzzled my head into her neck and murmured against her skin:

"Thank you, Bella. Thank you for fighting."

**xxx**

"No, I won't get out of the car."

Bella's arms were crossed stubbornly, her seat belt still intact.

"Bella, you need to get out. Now. I'll be back soon."

She just shook her head. "I wasn't born yesterday."

In comparison to me, she was. And as the details of the night poured forth on our ride home, I felt so old. And tired. Tired of watching this sick little show called humanity play out the same over and over again. Where good people just trying to get through the day get preyed upon by sick souls, just like the ones we'd left behind.

Bella just wanted to get some bread. That was her crime for the evening. A canceled appointment meant a wasted trip to Port Angeles, unless she bought some of her favorite bread at her favorite market. Whole grained bread that she liked to top with peanut butter and a smashed banana first thing in the morning.

"They followed you. They were tracking you, and just looking for the right time to strike." It took one to know one. We were of the same matter, the three pigs and me. I was just a newer, more improved model with better execution.

I'd laid out a similar trap for Bella myself. And her bloodscent was swirling around my car now, making me remember too well why I'd laid the trap in the first place.

Bella was safe, had only suffered a cut when the pig had hit her. And still I wouldn't let her call the cops. I asked her to get inside, that I needed to hunt. What I would hunt was still up for grabs though, and she knew it.

"Take me to my bedroom at least. We'll talk there."

I turned on the lights for her, opened up the closets so she could see the coast was clear. My requests to fetch Emily were denied.

"Lay down with me. We'll read, like we do every other night. You don't even have to do funny voices, just read. And you'll calm down and then we'll call the cops."

It was my turn to deny a request. I gave her a small piece of the truth to appease her: "The blood coming from your cut lip. It's....distracting. And I'm hopped up right now and hungry, and I haven't eaten since this morning. I need to go now."

Bella dabbed her lip with a tissue, then led me to her bed. "I watch a lot of Discovery Channel. When sharks attack, they bite their victims, and then let them bleed and weaken before going in for the kill. I don't want you to leave. Not right now."

"I'm not a shark. I don't need to weaken my victims before going in for the kill."

"You would if you didn't want me to witness it." She prompted me to sit down on the edge of her bed. "I know you need to feed, and I know it's hard to be around me with my lip. But I'll only let you go if I can call the cops first."

I told her no while trying hard to keep my thoughts straight as her scent engulfed me.

Her eyes narrowed in realization that I wasn't budging. She nodded once and then went to her dresser where she pulled out her nightshirt. Instead of heading for the bathroom, she began to undress right in front of me.

New tactic, my mind realized. My body couldn't have cared less about the motivations, however. It only processed that Bella was revealing herself to me.

Her shirt lifted up first. Then her pants next. Soft, ivory skin was exposed to me without so much as a pull of a collar or a tug of a hemline from my end.

She began to lazily gather her hair into a ponytail, standing in nothing but her underwear and bra. Both modest and cotton-made, but sexier on her than any lace contraption.

"See, if you stay, we can go back to our little world uninterrupted. A world that gets me through the day, Edward."

With neck-baring ponytail in place, she slowly slinked into her nightshirt. Bella turned around towards me, that chin upturned juust so again, determined and unyielding.

"And if I lost that, because you wanted to right my wrong? Because I did a couple dumb things like try to bypass some creeps by taking an alley detour to my car? Because even when I'm trying to be safe, I seem to fuck everything up?"

Her eyes were watering now, her tone frantic.

"Don't you dare take any of the blame for what happened, Bella. This is between them and me now."

Bella kneeled in front of me, silently pleading. "But it isn't anymore. The treaty, your family, us. We're all affected by what happens now. You aren't the Lone Ranger."

She reached out towards me, her shirt lifting up past her hips, exposing more skin and cotton than was appropriate, given the mood I was in. And the scent coming from her lip, and that vein pumping visibly on her bare neck....I scooted back up against her headboard, trying to prevent any contact.

"Don't touch me, Bella. Not when I'm like this."

Why wasn't I strong enough to leave?

She ignored me, crawling onto the bed instead. Bella sat up on her knees, arms extended, using the refrain we had volleyed back and forth everytime one of us felt themselves slipping away from the other: "Don't go. Stay with me here while this happens to you. And when you come out the other end, I'll be waiting. Right here."

I stopped her approaching hug with an upturned hand. Emily's words never seemed more timely. "Bella, I wish I could stay here with you. I wish you could fix me with your hugs and kisses and words. But I'm not a real boy. I'm closer to the pigs I left in the alley."

Almost identical, I silently added.

Bella placed her hand flatly against mine, then threaded our fingers together. "You're more real than any boy I've met. You have to work so much harder than anyone else, just to be close like this." She stared at our hands clasped in between us.

"And like this." Bella leaned in and kissed me carefully, making sure her cut lip didn't touch my skin. And I wanted to push her off and run far away. Or shake her by the shoulders and tell her this wasn't some fairy tale anymore. But her words held a promise that I wanted desperately to believe in: that somewhere deep inside me was a real boy. And he was becoming more real the longer I stayed with Bella.

"I need to go to my car, I can't even think straight in here, please." My voice was weak though, and my body made no attempt to move.

She feathered soft kisses along my jaw, and nose and eyes. "Remember you asked me to fight, in ways I hadn't thought of before? I need you to fight now too. Not with your hands and your mouth, but with your mind. Fight against the very thing you want to do most right now. Don't leave me behind."

I cried out out in frustration. Something from within needed to escape, I felt like I was going to combust. Too many feelings and sensations were coursing through me all at once, a shock to the system after a century's sabbatical. Hatred for those left behind in the alley. Anger for knowing that I wasn't that different from those I hated. Gratitude for not being too different, because I wouldn't have found her in time as a real boy. And resentment, because a monster wasn't who she should welcome into her bed.

Could I turn one side of my nature on and shut the other off at will? Did it work that neatly? Her soft lips against mine begged for me to at least give it a try.

Bella interpreted the cry as a surrender. "Let me be here for you, Edward."

Her tear stained face brushed against my neck as she straddled onto my lap. An innocent movement on her part, no doubt. A means to an end, to get closer to hug me. But I reacted instantly, my hips pushing up abruptly to meet her.

Bella froze for a second, looking at me. Then her eyes closed as she arched her back and ground down deeper in my lap.

My head flew back hard from the friction and the soft moan that came out of Bella. She wanted this. How long had she, as long as I had?

I panicked, my hands shaking into closed fists, afraid they'd shoot out and grip onto her with a force she couldn't handle. Bella noticed, causing her to gently guide my arms behind the headboard.

"Grip onto the wood. That will keep your hands occupied," she whispered. My hands obeyed, even if my mind was screaming to stop this before it was too late.

She began that fluid motion again; pushing down against me, and dragging back where she started. It was like watching a pendulum, waiting for her to strike just where on I wanted her to, only to have the contact leave too quickly as she swung in the other direction. I tried to prolong the moment, rising to meet her each time.

It still wasn't enough. Not enough contact, and not for a long enough time.

Not enough Bella.

I didn't want to just be up against her - I wanted to be inside her. As if she were a mind reader, her mouth latched onto mine. My tongue pumped outward, only to be trapped by her lips, sucking me off in bobbed time with her hips. As her lips worked me, the smallest trace of her blood glided onto my tongue.

Too much.

My head jerked backwards, before I called Bella on her bluff and took her right then and there. Dry wall sprinkled on top of my head from the headboard crashing into the wall. A deep groan bellowed out from my mouth, a wordless plea for Bella to understand what I couldn't say coherently. This was too much, with blood and lust mixing together into something violent and uncontrollable.

But she grinded into me deeper, harder; and all I could do was absorb the friction by slamming my head harder into the wall with each round. Burning tears were pooling in my eyes and nose, all too overwhelmed from her blood. And still, I kept pumping my tongue and hips, because all the pain couldn't mute what was happening between Bella's body and mine. We were moving as one, ready to peak together.

She was close now, moving wildly against me, breath loud and ragged.

"Closer. Get closer to me, Edward."

It was the last thing I heard as she pushed my head against her neck. Against the pulsing vein that had been beckoning me since I walked into her room. And against the faintest of scents. From a pig left behind in an alley not so far away, who had marked her skin with his drunken lips.

A growl roared out; not sensual, like the ones escaping from my lips just moments earlier. The kind that made Bella freeze in mid-motion with a gasp. I clamped my teeth shut, giving me the few seconds I needed to get away from that damned vein that was begging to be ripped open.

Nature took over now, with stage curtains drawing over the boy within. I could hear Bella plead and cry, begging me to stay. Even leaning over the balcony as I leapt off and disappeared into the woods. But those details were fading into the background. My mind focused forward, towards the city lights just minutes ahead of me. Where a pig laid in the alley, awaiting justice and the slaughterhouse in one shot.

Two birds, one stone.

**xxxx**

**"Turn off the sun pull the stars fom the sky **

**The more I give to you the more I die "**

** ---Nine Inch Nails, "The Perfect Drug"**

a/n: I know there's arguments about how the venom works with french kissing. I have no answers. lol


	14. What Have I Become, My Sweetest Friend?

**Chapter 13: What Have I Become, My Sweetest Friend?**

a/n: Thanks for the reviews lovelies! I hoard them like a weirdo!

a/n: Edward is in normal text; the other voice in in italics.

a/n: Chapter title and lyrical quote from "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails. Song link is on my profile.

**xxx**

**"Never forget ****I am more dangerous to you**** than I am to anyone else." --- ****Twilight****, Chapter 13, p.266**

**xxxx**

I tried opening eyes, but they were too heavy. Darkness surrounded me, a sensation I hadn't experienced for so long.

My right hand patted around itself, attempting to find some point of reference: Cold, dirt ground. Brittle leafs snapping underneath my finger tips. The leaves gave way to a mound underneath my back, hard and soft, cold and warm...

_"Edward."_

I froze, turning my face towards the gentle voice beside me. Or was it coming from behind?

_"It's been awhile."_

So familiar a sound, my sluggish mind noted, yet I couldn't quite place it.

_"Years. Decades even."_

I tried to respond, but my mouth had trouble moving. "Who" was all I could get out.

_"Who am I? You don't remember?"_

No.

_"We were great friends once. And you? You were a morning star among all the rest."_

Morning Star.....My mind moved backwards through the years, past my turning and back to the time of my real mother. Of fidgeting in overly starched clothes, swinging my feet back and forth in a pew as a sermon droned on. "Morningstar" was mentioned often from the pulpit, a title for Christ. But it also referenced another.

One who was once the greatest among all created beings, only to fall from grace and be cast out of heaven.

Images of my life before the turning flashed before me in quick succession. Happy images, playing like a morbid prologue for what was to come: sitting on my mother's lap, watching her read silently with a pursed smile on her lips. Tumbling onto the grass laughing, ball in hand and friends pouncing on top of me. Sitting behind a brown haired girl in class, wondering for the first time what those locks would feel like in between my fingers. Days spent talking and running and laughing - living. And nights spent sleeping, just as it should be.

All memories of a young boy with great promise who was cast out from his own piece of heaven as well.

_"You know what I like about you, Edward? No matter what side of the fence you are on, you're committed. You've never lacked conviction."_

Morningstars. Long lost friends. Fences. His words were all over the place, making no sense to my sluggish mind.

_"You know what I like most of all? When you're on the same side of the fence as me."_

A groan escaped my lips, an attempt to quiet the voice. Too much talking when all I wanted to do was fall asleep. But I hadn't slept since my turning....

"_You want me to leave, do you? When you were the one to summon me in the first place?"_

I summoned him?

My mind did a quick internal inventory: I couldn't open my eyes. I couldn't move well. I wanted to sleep. My current state was similar to my turning - minus the pain.

Was I dead?

My body felt none of the sensations that had been coursing through it for weeks now. Pain, hunger, anger, fear, sadness, regret, excitement.

Hope. Hope because of Bella.

But nothing now. Just a curious calm, egged on by a desire to rest. My lips struggled, but managed to form the words slolwy: "Who are you? Where am I?"

His only answer was silence. Several minutes passed before he spoke again: _"Who do you think I am?"_

The word playing upon my lips made me feel foolish.

"God?"

He chuckled gently. _"No, Edward. Does this seem like heaven to you?"_

I shook my head. Not quite. But my body was acting so strangely. And his voice was comforting.

"But you called me your Morningstar. Your fallen one."

His answer hovered over my ear.

_"Falling is a matter of perspective, isn't it? One man's ascent is another man's fall."_

Too many riddles when I couldn't even sit myself up properly.

_"Let me put it another way. Your Carlisle would say you fell when you left his fold. What if I said you fell when you returned?" _

Carlisle's face passed through my mind's eye from the night I had left.

The years of my rebellion blurred into one another with total uniformity. Days were ruled by chance and regimentation, side by side. I followed a strict protocol when it came to surveying, tracking, and hunting. But chance? Chance brought about the thrill of the chase. I felt like God, picking at will who would come to my judgement seat.

There were countless "candidates" to choose from as I walked the city streets, listening for thoughts that went beyond the usual depravity. More than one mind would often beckon on such outings, making me have to choose. Sometimes, the shade of their hair, or the set of their jaw would set me off in one direction instead of the other. Other times, I turned it into a game they were unaware of playing, picking whoever stepped on a crack in the pavement first. Or picked up the penny I dropped faster.

Shame washed over me as the memories stirred up feelings of excitement, even after all this time. I eventually returned home repentant and changed my ways. Re-committed to the ideals Carlisle had blueprinted out as to why we lived as we did. Disciplined myself to align those ideals with my actions. Never wavered from the Cullen's straight and narrow path from that point on. And yet, almost a century later, I still knew deep down: I was better at playing the lion than a lion in sheep's clothing.

_"I respect your Carlisle, and what he strives to do for his flock. But therein lies his fatal error: your kind was never meant for flocks."_

My kind. He seemed to know a lot about my kind. Which made me wonder outloud...

"Not God...You're the devil."

This wasn't heaven. And he was no angel.

_"No, but a common guess." _His voice was amused, but understanding_. "You're very confused right now."_

Yes. I couldn't open my eyes still, and my movement and voice were still groggy.

_"And you feel the change within you? Inside your veins, and within your mind? Do you feel it?"_

I was beginning to. Memories were flowing through me now in swift waves. They were so vivid, not blurred like usual. I could see my mother's face clearly now. The pain in Esme's eyes when I left the fold. The taste of blood swirling inside my mouth for the first time...

I had read about this before: of your life flashing before your eyes in brilliant technicolor before dying.

"I'm dead."

_"No, Edward. But death and life aren't for your kind. Yet another well-intentioned lie your Carlisle fed you."_

I didn't like the way "Carlisle" slid off his tongue so casually, nor the implications of deception on his part.

"Don't talk about Carlisle."

_"Why? I respect your good doctor. His intentions are well-meaning, aren't they?"_

"Yes."

_"And his grand social experiment to coexist with his natural prey and even his natural enemies, defying nature ITself, would have been successful. Save it for one complication he hadn't anticipated: You."_

I knew he would point the finger at me, even before he mouthed the words. Odd-Man-Out was my role, no matter how hard every family member tried to push and shove me back in.

"That's not Carlisle's fault." My voice was barely above a whisper. "The fault is solely my own."

_"Oh, Edward, but it isn't your fault. It's sits squarely on Carlisle's shoulders. He played God with you, a boy not even formed in human life when he made his choice and stole you from death. He declared his efforts with you a success; and continued his crusade, making mates for the both of you next. It worked for him, but you weren't so easily convinced with Rosalie, were you? Even back then Edward, you questioned him."_

Sadness filtered through my defensivenes, remembering the early efforts Carlisle made to keep me from being lonely.

_"Yet Carlisle continued, undeterred. Indulging your sister when she brought home a new toy she wanted to call her own."_

Emmett.

_"Adding to his brood with a package deal he didn't even need to pair up."_

Alice and Jasper.

_"Continuing to look for a mate you could call your own, to complete a family picture Dr. Frankenstein himself would have envied."_

Tanya.

"_But you didn't play along. An act of passive defiance on your part or a genuine disinterest? I was never sure while I watched from afar. Until now. Now it all makes sense."_

Sadness gave way to terror. My eyes flipped open, despite their heaviness.

Bella. He was referring to my Bella.

_"Carlisle, in all his idealistic arrogance didn't figure in one important factor to his utopian experiment. How you, unformed when turned, unattached for so long, would be affected by this co-existence between prey and predator."_

"Stop, no more." I didn't want him to go where this was leading.

_"No, you must listen. Listen for Bella's sake."_

My hand shot out in a clenched fist, punching out in vain towards a disembodied voice before falling back onto my chest. Too weak to fight....

_"Carlisle plays the noble doctor during the day. Esme? The doting mother. You and your siblings embody the good sons and daughters and students. At the end of the day, they can drop the sheep's clothing, fall into the arms of their mates, be who and what they truly are. But not you, Edward. Never you." _

I wanted to stop him. I wanted to fight him. But I couldn't fight what I could see, what I couldn't feel.

"You were cast out into the night alone instead."

"No..." No one cast me out, I left on my own accord. "That was my choice."

_"A choice made in part for not wanting to intrude on the mates' time alone. Because your kind, Edward, was meant for solos or duets, not flocks. You understand that more than ever now."_

His voice came closer to my ear, the cool breath grazing my lobe.

_"You put your sheep's clothing back on at night. Sought refuge in movie theaters, the only houses opened late in the small towns Carlisle dragged you to. Watched movies that spoke of love and life - and living. Carlisle was a fool not to see this coming, forcing you to be a witness to humanity day and night. He must have realized that one day, you'd want to participate."_

Emily's words echoed through my head as his meaning sunk in: "You aren't a real boy though."

"You are the devil himself, is what I think. Using words to turn me against those I love. In the name of Christ, I command you to go." It was the only verbal talisman I could remember from my days as a child. A spell of sorts to ward against evil. And from the top of my head, straight down the tips of my toes, I could feel it. Him - full of danger and suffering.

_"Christ has no place in this conversation, Edward. Neither does the devil. Don't flatter yourself with thinking you'd get a private audience with either. I'm just doing my job. And appealing to you to do your job too, from one old friend to another. I've laid out the pattern in your family. You've got to know what's in store for Bella now if you continue as you are."_

"Don't say her name, "I warned in a low voice. "Don't you dare say her name again. You have no right to."

_"Oh, but I do, boy. More right than you. She's my ward now, no matter how hard you fight against IT."_

IT.....This wasn't god or the devil. Demon or angel. This was the IT that had followed Bella for months now. Who threatened to take her away from me. Who had almost taken her away from me tonight.

I rolled onto my stomach, attempting to get up onto all fours, yet my movement was so sluggish. I tried to focus my eyes, but they were still blurred and unfocused. All I could do was thrash out with my arms, swinging blindly.

I made contact with nothing; still, the voice was as close as ever.

_"Yes, you'll fight IT now. But for what? To welcome Bella into your family? To bring home your new toy, just like Rosalie did, so Carlisle can indulge you as well? Is that how your love for the human girl will end? So she can be stained with the blood of others, just as you are now?"_

I lashed out with my fists again, but my knees slipped on the wetness underneath me. I fell with a quiet thud onto the soft mound below. My eyes began to focus now, as well as my other senses. First I caught a glimpse of soft cotton - plaid, with red and orange lines. Then splotchy blueish skin, streaked with slashes and dripping crimson. Until my sight fixed upon glazed eyes, frozen in their last moments of living terror, staring back at me.

The man from the alley. The man who had hit and touched Bella.

A swift force pushed my head closer to the corpse, rubbing my nose into the shredded neck.

_"You feel the change now? What it feels like to run on energy that doesn't leave you half starving? Your body's in shock right now, it's not used to being satiated properly."_

I wanted to scream out, but nothing came. Nothing but faces of all the loved ones who trusted me up until now, even as I straddled a dangerous line in recent weeks: Carlisle. Esme. My silbings. And Bella....Bella at her window, waving at me while asking me to read her a story....

_"This is what you are, Edward. Don't let Carlisle fool you any longer. The question now is: Is this what you want for Bella?" _

"NO......NO......NO...." I kept wailing out the word, shaking my head with each repetition, hoping my bitter plea would be heard from above. I didn't deserve heaven's mercy, but Bella sure as hell did.

_"She's my ward now. She will be taken. You can't stop this..."_

"NO.....NO......NO....."My pleas turned toward the voice now, shameless in their appeal. "She's been through too much. Please... Leave her be..."

_"Neither you nor I can stop it. But you can end it, Edward. End it in a way Carlisle refused to end it for you."_

"NO....."

_"You failed the first time I sent her to you. And if you continue to get in the middle of the natural order of things like you did tonight, my only choice will be to call in greater forces. Forces that can get the job done. There are visitors coming into this area. Do you know what that means for Bella?"_

Yes, I did.

_"If you end it, you can give her one of the few things your kind can offer her: mercy. A transition that is painless and instant."_

A mercy killing. He was offering to let me execute a mercy killing on Bella, with the threat he'd make her suffer if I didn't obey. For weeks, I'd been running around in every direction, trying to fight off forces that might do her harm. Natural forces it seemed, just a little more concentrated for a pot stirrer like Bella. But all along, Bella had been telling me there was a root cause:

IT was behind it all.

"You won't touch her. No one will, including me. I'll fight heaven and hell to make sure she's safe. So keep playing your games, but just know: I won't fight fair, and I will win. I have no choice now."

He laughed, amused by my speech.

_"As I said, no matter what side of the fence you're on, you commit to it. But the rules have changed, now that you've spilled blood. You're alive again, in the way nature intended. And the harder you fight, the more your nature will kick in. I wonder how that will affect your good behavior around Bella..."_

I began to shuffle around on all fours, searching in vain for something concrete to strike, claw at - bite. It only seemed to amuse him more.

_"And as for games? This is no game, I assure you. But here's a clue to give you a headstart, for old time's sake."_

His voice suddenly veered to the right, becoming very soft.

_"Come closer if you want to hear what my secret weapon will be in this standoff of ours."_

I scurried to the right, only to hear the voice bounce off to my left. I growled in frustration, my eyes still unable to see well in the distance.

_"I thought you liked games, Edward,"_ the voice now said a couple feet in front of me.

I charged forward, only to have a spindly finger on my shoulder stop me dead in my tracks:

**_"Tag, Edward - You're IT."_**

**xxxx**

**"You can have it all, my own empire of Dirt,**

**I will let you down**

**I will make you hurt."**

** ---Nine Inch Nails, "Hurt"**

a/n: I just wanted to explain something really fast about this chapter. I do think Death is a prominent character in the Twilight Series, always off just to the side, but it's presence is made clear throughout. And it seemed the more Edward fought to keep her safe and save her from death, the more death concocted more worthy adversaries to take her down(edward, tyler's van, port angeles, james, volturi, victoria.)

ETA: FAQ: "Who is IT?" IT is Death personified.


	15. Waves That Never Break

**Chapter 14: Waves That Never Break**

**a/n: **Thanks for the reviews lovelies! I took a month to update, but I have the next chapter almost finished, so the next update will be in a week.

**a/n:** The lyrical quote and chapter title come from such a beautiful song - **The Like's "Waves That Never Break."** I listen to it and always see a young girl on a bed in the dark, anticipating and waiting for something, not quite sure what though. Song's on my profile.

**a/n:** Quick refresher of the past two chapters: Edward saves Bella in Port Angeles, but isn't willing to let the perps get off so easily. He attempts to drop Bella off at her apartment, with the intent of going back to Port Angeles and finishing the job. Bella tries to stop him with words, then with seduction when words fail. The physical intimacy is too much though, mixing and mingling lust and bloodlust together in dangerous ways. Edward throws Bella off roughly, and runs off. He awakens later, confused and groggy. It soon becomes apparent he has killed and fed off his victim, and Death is on hand, issuing a warning: Either kill Bella with mercy, or else suffer the consequences of her meeting her end in a merciless way by another's hand.

**x****xx**

**"Why do you always have to love the wrong things, Bella?" -**Jacob Black, Breaking Dawn, Chapter 10, p. 197

**xxx**

"This is Emily. I'm either busy, away from the phone, or just plain ignoring you. Leave a message."

Beep.

I would have hung up, even if she had answered. But hearing Emily's calm voice fortified me for Alice's impending arrival.

The full moon beamed brightly through my patio window, right up to the edge of my bed. The same patio he leapt off of with a grace and speed he'd never revealed before.

I knew he held back around me. Edward moved with such deliberation, touched me with great care. A safety precaution I imagined for all my personal deficiencies. Now I knew I could have been the strongest man on earth, and it still didn't make up the difference.

I wasn't too weak because I was Bella. I was too weak because I was too human.

Too human in how I spoke and teased him. It was the very thing that pulled him closer; surprised him, made him erupt in laughter after all this time. His days were immersed in mimicry; Edward could smile or frown accordingly, nod his head with seeming empathy on cue. But an honest emotion had been hard to come by. Laughter? Even harder.

Too human in how I wanted to touch him, and touch me back. Things we did with great care, up until tonight. It was like watching a rolling ticker tape across his expressive face, the way he brokered internal deals in my bed every evening:

_"I'll kiss her until the clock strikes 2:07, but no more."_

_"I'll raise her shirt hem to the top of her thigh, but no more."_

_"I'll let my chin graze the top of her breast, but no more."_

The constant bartering between his two selves was sad and sweet, and ultimately frustrating. Because his other nature always won in the end, luring him out of my embrace and back into the forest with only the moonlight to guide him.

I'd been a gracious loser, until now. _This_ siren call wasn't beckoning him away for the night, but forever.

Tonight I didn't make his choice so easy, reminding him of his duty to his family, to the treaty. To me and himself. But his faraway look, still fixated on my window, remained unmoved.

Desperation took over; first I freed myself of my shirt, then the pants. My flip smile dared him to ignore me now, even if inside I felt less than worthy of seducing a boy like Edward.

But he didn't call my bluff. Edward finally looked away from the window and back at me. I latched on, drawing the moment out longer. Touching him gently, pleading with him to let me help him through this craving. Reminding him how much he'd given up to make it this far with me. How could he throw it all away by leaving me behind now? Without thinking, I moved onto his lap to close the physical distance.

His body answered with a single thrust upwards, surprising even himself. I rocked back onto him, amazed that this was all it took. A single hip swivel resulted in the changing of the power guard between us. He was surrending to me, and the boy inside him. I kept my wits, guiding him down this new path. He followed me silently, wide-eyed but eager.

Then my greed took over as heat and love and frustration conspired against me. I indulged my desire for a moment, moving too quickly, grabbing too firmly. Kissing and licking when he didn't stop me right away.

Acting too human.

That's all it took, a moment of distraction on my part. Within seconds he went from boy to runaway train, flinging me off him as he lunged over my balcony. The grace with which he leapt was so beautiful, I paused in admiration. But then I noticed the low set of his eyebrows, and the crouched tension in his back. Fingers flexed and clawed; lips drawn back, exposing grinding teeth. And the determined line his path took into the forest - a line that would lead him straight to Port Angeles.

My first thought was to call 911, hoping the police could get there before he did. But the real chance of them stumbling onto a crime in progress with Edward in the middle was too high.

I sprinted to his car, wondering if I could drive the car as fast as Edward did, when his cellphone caught my attention on the dashboard.

Alice.

I ran back to my bedroom, frantically looking for his keys. They were nowhere to be found. Could they still be in his pocket? My hands shook as I took the fire exstinguisher, compliments of Charlie, from the kitchen and beat it against Edward's car door window. Even though his very soul hung in the balance, the thought of him finding his car trashed mortified me.

Alice answered on the first ring: "Edward?"

It was my lot to tell her it wasn't. That he was about to do something very dangerous, if he hadn't already. I begged her to help me find him, pleaded to have her whole family aid in the search. Told her where I knew he was going this very minute, if he wasn't already there.

I waited to hear the urgency and terror in Alice's voice. It never came.

"Bella, I'm already here. I found your truck earlier. And I'm standing in the very place you mentioned right now. Nothing. No one. The rain's washed all evidence of it away at least..."

Washed away all evidence. At least.

Too late - I was too late. My knees buckled, slamming into the ground.

"Where are you, right now Bella? Have you told anyone where you were tonight? Have you talked to anyone? Why did Edward leave you?"

The first and second and third question were easy enough to answer. The fourth was harder to explain, however.

"I'm coming to you now, and I'll bring your truck," was all she uttered before hanging up.

So calm and determined, Alice's voice was. I was still in search and rescue mode, but Alice? Alice was already at the clean-up crew stage. Edward had mentioned this about her before, how unflappable Alice was when she set her sights on something.

Edward.

The very mention of his name ripped through my chest and deep into my heart. He was out there somewhere, wet and alone. I wanted to pray and ask whoever was up there to turn back time. Let me redo the last three or four days. I always played up my bravado around Edward, which made him more anxious and protective. But how could I not? If I didn't, I'd spent equal amounts of time giggling and crying over him like a sloppy drunk. Giggling over what we had found against the odds, crying over what would be taken away too quickly.

But to know I sped up the expiration date by being careless, even challenging? Unbearable.

Alice knocked on the front door, all politeness with two light taps. No balcony leaping for her. When I saw the spiked heels she had on, I didn't question why.

Her fierce beauty stopped me in my tracks, just like it had the first time we met. She'd warned me then to stay away from Edward for his own good. Mine also, since there were family whisperings of having me eliminated from his equation altogether. Her mission that night was to scare me away; but our conversation took a turn neither of us anticipated. And within minutes, Alice was sharing all that Edward had endured through the years. She confided in me, and I turned around and did the very thing she told me not to.

Alice glided through the open door and passed me like an apparition, too quick and elusive to focus on initially. No greetings were exchanged, nor were such pleasantries appropriate. Her nose simply inhaled before hanging a quick right down the hall to my bedroom.

"He jumped off the balcony from here and disappeared into the woods," I mumbled, watching her small form freeze by my door frame. Before her was evidence of our last moments together. Crumbling dry wall, a twisted and indented headboard. The damage easily outlined where his hands had gripped too tightly, and his head had banged against it. Sheets and pillows and blankets were in disarray on the bed...and the floor.

Alice about-faced in my direction, her heels clicking against the floor in the process. Water soaked her clothes and hair. Still, she looked like some cover model in the middle of a high concept photo shoot, as if being water-logged was the new black. Her eyes glanced from head to toe, taking me all in. My flimsy night shirt that barely covered my backside, the tousled hair. Tear-stained eyes, swollen lips. Flushed cheeks.

I didn't even need to say a word for her to figure out what happened - or almost did.

"Did I not tell you, Bella." Her voice was low but seething. "Did I not warn you what could happen if you didn't stay away from him?"

Yes she had; and I'd turned right around, absorbed everything she confided, and used it against Edward that same evening to push things further. And continued to push him, until he was pushed too far. A choked sob escaped from my throat as my legs gave out once more from underneath me.

"I'm sorry. I tried to make him stay." My eyes peeked back at the bed that was witness to my failure. Alice's eyes followed mine across the room. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..."

Her movement was quick; she hovered over me before I even realized it, picking my chin up roughly with her tiny index finger. "That's it? You're sorry? You think there's a return policy on him now that things got complicated?"

All I could do was shake my head. What was she talking about?

She swooped downwards even closer, cold hands cradling my face as she whispered in my ear: "You broke him. You bought him."

Understanding washed over me. She thought I called her to pawn this mess off on her. To pawn Edward off on her.

"No-"

"Yes," she came back, her eyes beautiful and frightening with their light golden stare. They almost glowed in the moon-bathed darkness of my room. I shook my head defiantly.

"No.....YES. I'm not going anywhere, even if you tried to keep me away. I would never leave him now, it's too late. We're in this together."

My tears were coming quickly now as I looked back in hindsight to the past couple of days. So much responsibility was being put upon him, and all because of me. Shielding me from his family, shielding us from the pack, shielding me from my own apathy. When it was my turn to shield him from himself in this very bedroom, I only exposed him more.

Alice pulled back, examining my face with suspicion. But then she fixed her attention on the tears falling off my eyelashes. Her finger poked out, stealing one sliding down my cheek before investigating it closely. A smile broke out, and the harsh set of her eyebrows relaxed.

"It IS too late to back out now, you realize that don't you?" Her voice was softer now, sympathetic even. I nodded back.

"Of course it is. It was too late the first time you came to me, Alice."

Her hands left my cheeks, suddenly moving to my back. She rocked me back and forth like a child, saying "there, there" in hushed tones. The stiffness in her embrace made me wonder if she had taken comforting cues from a Hallmark commercial. The need to physically comfort others though was probably rare for her kind.

"It's too late in many ways, Bella. Do you understand that it's too late for us to save him tonight?"

The men in the alley - that's who she was speaking of. I nodded, even though I couldn't process it yet. That somewhere out there, he was alone after doing the unthinkable.

"We can't save him tonight. But we can save him tomorrow, you and I."

My ears pricked up. "How?"

"I'll tell you, but what I'm about to say can never go beyond these four walls."

These four walls had long kept our secrets, even from Alice. It only seemed fitting that they would serve such a purpose again tonight.

"He will come back here soon, Bella. And how long he stays will be up to you."

Before I could stutter out why would he come back, she answered.

"Because he has to. He'll lie to himself, justifying it as a farewell. One last look at you before he leaves. But deep down, he'll want you to make him stay. You will, won't you?"

Her eyes were fixed on my reaction to her proposal. All I could give her was a disheartened nod. My track record with such things weren't exactly promising.

"If you get him to stay, he'll return to my family eventually. How long he will stay with my family will then be up to me. But you, Bella, you're the key. We can leave nothing to chance this time around."

Her plan for me, as she continued, wasn't completely out of my capabilities.

"He'll try to sabotage everything that you've built up together. Don't even flinch, whatever he throws at you. Fight dirty, with open arms and open words that give him hope - even if being saved is the last thing he wants right now."

She needed me to be his refuge, that's what she was speaking of. Taming, re-establishing ties, even if Edward imagined them severed beyond repair.

"That's what we do every night in this room. Give one another hope," I whispered. Talking. Comforting. Reading together. My eyes closed breifly, realizing it had gone far beyond that lately. We had spent more time tussling on my bed than reading in the last week.

Alice caught my change in expression. "But you must keep your wits about you now, Bella. The things that come natural to you, you have to think twice about. Edward works so hard at not doing what comes natural to him with you. You must do the same from now on. You are.... overwhelming for him sometimes."

The lingering glance at on skimpy nightshirt emphasized her meaning.

"I'm too human for him," I confessed.

"No, Bella, you weren't human enough to run the other way the minute you saw Edward coming. If anything, he's too human. It's all flooding back to him now."

Because of me.

We were sitting on my bed now. If anyone had walked into my room, they would have imagined two girls having a pajama party. Not plotting to pull the rug out from everyone around us, because of the shared love for a sullen boy. What strange bedfellows we made; just ten minutes earlier, Alice looked more than ready to slice me in half.

"How will you get Edward to stay with your family? Won't Carlisle throw him out when he discovers what's happened? And the treaty....The tribe...."

Alice shhhh'd me softly, putting a chilled finger to my lips. "Find out what?"

The look she gave me, all feigned innocence, made me understand. They wouldn't be finding out. But how?

Alice took my hand in hers, staring down at our intertwined fingers. "Do you know about my talents?"

Yes. Her gift worked in tandem with Edward's. Edward picked up on things in the present with reading minds. Alice picked up on things in the future. Their talents combined made for a formidable offense and defense for the Cullen family.

"My family entrusts their very welfare in my abilities." She tweaked her head to the side to look at me now. "I've never steered them wrong. And never will, unless a greater good is at stake. In my own way, I'm putting our family first still with what I have to do."

Aha. She was going to cover this up, and her influence in the family was going to make it possible.

"There are visitors coming. At this very minute, Bella, as we speak."

I stared at her in confusion. She changed moods and subjects every few seconds, and I couldn't keep up.

"Edward has told me about them---"

She shook her head just slightly, signaling that I wasn't catching on.

"These visitors aren't like my family, Bella. They...indulge when it comes to their diet. They're loosely banded together out of convenience, not commitment like us. They're very unpredictable."

A pause on her part tuned me onto the next part being important.

"In fact, tonight, while Edward was keeping you company in your bedroom, because your session was cancelled and you were nowhere near Port Angeles tonight?"

She waited for me to nod in understanding. I was Edward's alibi.

"I had a dream. Of some young men in town, up to no good, who were at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and messed with the wrong person. Or wrong visitor."

My eyes widened as I caught onto the plan.

"Does that makes sense Bella? The vision I had, it's blurry and hard to make out the details. But this is what I saw. I'll take it upon myself to warn the visitors that such behavior in these parts are forbidden, what with the Pack congregated in large numbers here. And I'll urge them to move on to another town where there will be less complications with their hunting. Does that make sense, Bella?"

"Yes, it makes sense. Perfect sense."

We sat quietly for several minutes, mulling over the details of our pact. She explained that the visitors would not be held too responsible for the attack, they wouldn't be aware of existing treaties. It was vital though, she added, that she and another trusted family member meet with the visitors to keep them moving along to another area. Convenience, she emphasized. Convenience is what banded the visitors together, and convenience would be the reason they would want to heed Alice's warning to move along.

"Edward will be coming soon. I need to go. He'll be cagey, Bella. Be careful in your speech and movements, or he'll flee again."

She began to get off my bed, but I wouldn't let go of her hand.

"Alice, you said once that under different circumstances we would be friends. Do you consider me a friend now?"

She shook her head with an air of sympathy before laying a quick kiss on each of my hands. "We are more than that. We are sisters. Nothing can break the bond that we have made together now, no matter how much they will try."

Her words and tone were kind. But the fiery resolution in her eyes implied that even I couldn't break the bond if I wanted to now. It should have scared me; instead, I was comforted to know that of all the Cullens to support us, it was the family member that Edward cherished most.

**xxx**

I did just as Alice instructed before she left. I redressed in shapeless flannel pajamas, and hunkered down into bed. I even added my own personal touch, laying out his old blanket on the balcony lounge chair that used to double as his bed. It was a silent invitation to stay, even if the patio was the closest he would come to me.

"Keep your eyes closed too," she added. "The more you look asleep, the closer he'll get."

It felt like hours, as I laid as still as possible under the covers. The rain had started again, dark clouds covering the full moon. Only the smallest slide of the lounge chair outside signaled his arrival. I opened my eyes, but couldn't make out much.

Then the thunder roared, followed by a lightning bolt crackling throughout the sky. And for a brief flash, I saw him. Edward was crouched over his old makeshift bed, hugging my blanket to his chest. He was wet and muddy, hair sticking out wildly.

Alice's parting words came back to me: "_Reassure him, Bella, the way only you can."_

I spoke slowly in a hushed voice: "Edward. I waited up for you. I hoped you would come back to me."

He made no movement, still frozen in his hunched over squat and downturned face.

I slowly arose from my bed, making no sudden movements.

"I'm going to stand up and open the door. Please don't leave me again. I won't come any nearer if you don't want me to."

Left. Right. Left. Right. Each step forward was carried out with measured precision. When I opened up the door, I hoped he would finally look up. He didn't.

"It's raining so hard, Edward. Come inside with me."

My voice sounded light and casual, but the facade was quickly collapsing onto itself. I could feel the tears welling up, and my voice was shaking.

I ventured onto the patio, but his hand shot out defensively. "No." The only word to come out, and it gutted me. His voice was rough and pained. Like he couldn't bear the thought of me touching him, even looking at him.

I began to panic, he seemed so close to bolting again. "Come inside, just once more. Lie down and rest. I'll read to you, and I won't even be a pain in the ass and make you do impersonations, I promise." My voice cracked as the tears spilled over. He finally looked up, his eyes wild and despondent at the same time - and deep crimson.

The gasp came out before I could muzzle it. His lids flittered to a close in response, his body turning reflexively towards the ledge again.

"Please, don't, Edward. Don't go, come inside. Don't leave me."

His eyes shot open, more focused and grieving now. His voice was barely above a whisper: "I already have."

Anger flooded through me, in part because there was some truth to what he said. "No, you haven't. You're here now, after everything that's happened. You can't leave me now."

My hand shot out possessively for his, but he recoiled backwards out of reach. His head shook slowly, like a mother scolding a child.

"I've...."

He raised his right hand to the side of his head. A stray light across the street made it barely possible to make out the details. But it was enough to see the remnants of blood streaking down his fingers. Nausea punctured through my anger, rendering me helpless to unsteady knees.

"already..."

His other hand raised to the other side of his head now, the way a child would mimic the boogeyman. It would have made me giggle, if it weren't for his index finger sticking out proudly from the rest, bloody with....matter hanging out from underneath the finger nail.

"left...."

Lightning discharged across the sky again, allowing me to see him more clearly. His eyes were defiant again. He must have seen the terror in my eyes, because he peeled back his lips into a ghoulish grin, revealing teeth that held evidence of the evening's earlier activities. The sight of him and the smells were too much. I could feel my knees about to give out, the bile rising up past my throat.....

Alice's words whispered into my ear though, just before I could shut my eyes and will this new manifestation of Edward away:

_"He'll try to sabotage everything that you've built up together. Don't even flinch, whatever he throws at you. Fight dirty, with open arms and open words that give him hope - even if being saved is the last thing he wants right now."_

This was his good-bye to me. Edward wasn't going to leave me. He was going to make me leave him. His eyes were full of anticipation, just waiting for me to run in the other direction, close the door, and lock it behind me.

So, I did what I always did with him, even if it would take everything within me to not retch, and blubber, and mourn the fact that in some very real way, his words were true. That a part of the boy I fell in love with did not make it out of the forest tonight.

_"Fight dirty.....with open arms and open words."_

I reached for both his hands, and took a firm hold. My head leaned onto his chest, then nuzzled into the crook of his neck. I kissed the cheek that was muddiest and bloodiest, even as his body tensed in surprise.

My lips reached up to his ear:

"I know you're trying to scare me. It's working, trust me. I see what's under your nails, and on your clothes, and inside your eyes and mouth. And yet I can still see you, Edward. You can't fool me, I still see you underneath all of it."

His whole body deflated with my words, shoulders collapsing and face drooping into a mournful grimace. "I can't," was all he could say. " I can't see..."

"Let me see for the both of us then, until you can."

I understood why he was holding onto his anger so tightly. The minute he gave it up, Edward could barely stand up on his own. The grief pouring out from him was overwhelming. He thought he'd failed me by not keeping me at bay, I could feel it.

Edward didn't put up a fight as I took his hand. He followed me dutifully through my room, and into my bathroom. He didn't question me as I put the shower on full blast with scalding hot water. Or when I helped him out of his shirt or pants. Only when I reached for his underwear did he startle.

"Just keep them on then."

I kept my pajamas on as I led him into the shower stall. I soaped and shampoo'ed him up and down, trying to wash away every last remnant of the night's developments off his body. The smell was putrid, no matter how hard I scrubbed and washed and tooth brushed. I couldn't get rid of the smell all the way. He stood there passively, looking just beyond my shoulder as a focal point the whole time.

I toweled him down, before giving him an old bathrobe to put on. His shuffle to my bed was groggy and labored, so different from the light movements over my balcony earlier. He laid down without a word.

"I'll be right back, I'm just going to change into some dry clothes," I offered. Not that he was asking.

When I came back to bed, I remembered Alice's admonishments to think twice about how I acted. I slid under the covers with him, tentatively molding myself into his side. He finally reacted, lifting his arm up so I could snuggle into his shoulder before wrapping it back around me.

A rite - his arm was observing a rite.

Just days earlier, I'd read a passage from The Little Prince aloud. The fox explained how through observing specific rites, we allow certain moments to stand out from all others.

All our playtime together in the evening, it seemed, had been hard work as well. We had been establishing ties through these rites, these small actions that we followed night after night. Him reading to me in funny voices. Me reading to him from the same book. Lying in my bed, holding onto one another as our worlds around us were spinning out of control.

We were eachother's constant in an inconstant world, and the nightly observances of our relationship were its lifeblood.

His world came crashing down tonight, and mine by extension. The glances he gave at times were that of a stranger.

Yet his arm and it's movements, and maybe his arm alone, were testifying to me. Saying what his mouth and mind and heart couldn't right now: "I remember, Bella. I remember, and nothing can make me forget."

I needed to reassure every part of him that I remembered too.

Jumping out of bed, I rushed to the bookcase, taking out The Little Prince. "Let me read to you, before we rest. Like we do every night."

Rites relied on proper observance. To read to him before snuggling in bed was the correct order.

His arm raised up again, but froze it mid-motion as he stared at me.

"I can't stay, Bella."

"Yes, you can."

His eyes were back, all signs of wildness drained from them. "I can't leave. And I can't stay." He was trying to communicate something to me, in his words and gaze. But I couldn't quite catch his meaning. He cut off eye contact, focusing on my ceiling instead.

"I can't leave. I can't stay....." he whispered in almost sing-song repetition.

I tried soft words of encouragement to tell him otherwise. That he could stay. That we needed to take this day by day. Hell, hour by hour even. All of them bounced off his steady chanting. Soft words soon gave way to louder declarations.

"It's too late, Edward. Leaving isn't even an option at this point."

That pushed a button inside him. His head snapped in my direction. "Don't say that. Never say it's too late." The gravelly voice that accompanied was almost threatening. I was treading on dangerous territory, but refused to acknowledge it.

Flipping through the book I'd retrieved, I found the passage that was sticking out in my head. "But it is, Edward."

I propped the book onto his chest, clearing my throat before reading:

**"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."**

**"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important," the fox added.**

**"It is the time I have wasted for my rose — " said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.**

**"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."**

Or your prince, I added silently.

I kissed both his eyelids closed, two silent vows to him that I would never forget. I would never forget who he really was, underneath everything that some cruel fate had piled on top of him. I would never forget that we had indeed tamed one another, not even realizing it, with each smile and joke and confession we'd shared over time. I would never forget I was responsible for him. And I would never let him forget that he was responsible for me too.

"You see, Edward," I said, molding back into his side once more, just like I had the night before and the night before that.

Proper observance of our rites dictated it.

"It is too late now. And I wouldn't have it any other way."

**xxx**

**Waitin****g Alone In the Darkness**

**Racing for someone **

**Hoping they stay**

**-- "Waves That Never Break," The Like**

**a/n:** Although the chapter quote comes from Breaking Dawn, I think the notion that Bella loves the wrong things basically sums up the whole series in one efficient sentence(and the more she loves the wrong things, the more they may realize they aren't so wrong afterall). I wanted to make this chapter reminiscent of a darker take on "the meadow" scene in Twilight. The thing I loved most about the meadow scene is that Edward is trying so hard to scare her away. He's cagey when she gets too close to him, is running around in circles like Speedy Gonzalez on crank, throwing trees and shit! lol And it's comical yet sad(as Edward always is), because he's almost challenging her to run away, for her own good, but also to prove to himself he doesn't deserve to be loved by her. And dumb ass Bella, always completely tone deaf to self preservation is like, "ewww, you sparkle! neato!" I always loved the meadow scene for that reason, he tries so hard to push her away by showing himself in the worst light possible, and Bella simply shrugs her shoulders instead of running in the other direction.

**a/n, eta**: "I can't stay, I can't leave." Some are asking what this means. It's referring to his encounter with Death, where it's made clear that if he leaves Bella to save her from himself, she's doomed. And if he stays, now that he's killed again, she may be doomed by his own hand.


	16. A Tiny Storm In Your Teacup Girl

**Chapter 15: A Tiny Storm In Your Teacup Girl**

_a) Thanks for the reviews, special thanks to kstew411 for her rec love._

_b) I finished the chapter at over 10,000 words, so a friend suggested dividing it up into two installments. The second part with Bella meeting the Cullens will come out next week- I mean it this time. lol_

_c) The chapter title and lyrical quote come from** Red Hot Chili Pepper's "Storm in Your Teacup" **- song link on my profile. I just like the chrous cause it talks about a girl who seems invulnerable, that a problem is nothing but a storm in a teacup. And yet the next line says "I know we may never get out of here." I like the contrast between bravado and the reality that things may be bigger than you want to acknowledge._

_d) **quick summary**: **chapter 13**: Edward kills Bella's would-be attackers, and summons an unexpected guest who issues a warning: either kill Bella with mercy, or be willing to watch her die in a less merciful way. **Chapter 14**: Bella is in shock, realizing her seemingly normal desires have pushed him over the edge. Alice comes to her aid, breaking the news to her that Edward has done the unthinkable. She tells Bella he will return once more, but how long he will stay will be up to her. That she must do everything in her power to make him stay. She does just that, reminding him in the end that they've both tamed eachother, and are responisble for one another now, no matter what happens._

_e) "Tempest in a teapot" or "**Storm in a teacup:" a small event that's been exaggerated out of proportion**._

**xxxxxx**

**Eclipse, p. 365: "He pulled me into his arms at once, just like he had in the parking lot, and kissed me again. This kiss frightened me. There was too much tension, too strong an edge to the way his lips crushed into mine-like he was afraid we only had so much time left to us."**

**xxxxxx**

It turns out, Edward doesn't sleep - ever.

Alice clued me in the day after he returned from the woods and spent his first night ever with me.

"He's sleeping still, has been all morning," I mentioned when Alice called the next day.

"What do you mean sleep?"

I peeked my head into my bedroom, where he laid completely still; eyes closed, breathing slow and heavy.

"Sleep...as in unconscious...knocked out...."

A long pause followed on her end.

"We don't sleep, Bella."

Ever?

"Never."

I flipped through my mental rolodex. It stopped crisply on a single image that had played out night after night: my patio, the lounge chair specifically. And Edward on top of it, curling up underneath a too-thin blanket before settling in for a night's sleep.

Why hadn't he just told me the truth instead of playing possum?

Alice's words from our first meeting came rushing back to me - words that had been running through my head all night:

"**_It's macabre, watching him now. Like a wooden puppet trying to be a real boy. Ripping off his own strings, not realizing they hold him up. But he keeps cutting, all for you. "_**

Of course he hadn't told me the truth. It was just another reminder of the natural divide between us.

Alice noted my silence and quickly changed gears. Her voice took on the calm reassurance of an airline stewardess:

"That doesn't mean he's not exhausted though. I'm sure he needs the relaxation right now." There was an unspoken rule that I had quickly caught onto: we were never to speak of what happened in the woods the night before. From this point on, it was as if it never happened.

"Edward must regroup, Bella, and only you can help him with that now. And he must feed, even though he'll have no appetite. He'll flush himself out faster that way."

As if my bedroom was a spa resort getaway for Edward.

Alice wanted him to hide away at my place until the "side effects" of the prior night were not so apparent. The red eyes, the unpredictable demeanor.

"The scent," Alice added, something even I could pick up on occasion.

"It was all my fault he left our family," she continued as if the Cullens were eavesdropping in on her newly spun tale of how Edward went missing, right around the time that three never-do-wells went missing too. I had to keep up - Edward's alibi was full of important details I needed to memorize.

"I overstepped my boundaries as his sister, pushed him too far, like I've been known to do."

I could almost hear her winking at me over the phone with that last sentence.

"I accused Edward of picking you over his own family, and that was the last straw for him. I practically pushed him into the comfort and solace of your arms, Bella. And he'll stay in those arms for at least a week more, until he's ready to face our family again with you in tow."

Yet another touch Alice had thought up. My presence at the family "reunion" would serve as a deflection for his questionable absence during questionable foul play in the next town over.

"You are family to us now anyways, Bella. It's time you are given a proper introduction to everyone."

By the tone of her voice, I wasn't sure if it was an invitation so much as a directive.

Another fun fact: Edward didn't need to breathe either.

Why did he then?

"Habit. Cellular memory. Bodies still doing what they had been set up to do in the first place." Alice spoke as if she were talking about a carburetor.

"Only he has two sets of memories for one confused body right now," I added.

And it was confused.

I was off the phone now, watching him lie in my bed in a coma-like state. If he was incapable of sleeping, then his outcries in my bed last night weren't from nightmares.

Not everyone had the luxury of being asleep when their darkest fears were realized though.

I tip-toed over to the side of the bed, having no clue how to work the miracles Alice thought me capable of. She expected me to flush him out, help him regroup, as if I were equal parts life coach and doctor.

I wasn't even sure how to make him open his eyes.

"Edward?"

No response. No anything, even if I knew he could hear me.

His appearance reminded me of a documentary I'd watched with my father years ago. Of some faraway culture, deep within a thick rainforest, where witch doctors held villagers emotionally hostage. Just the pointing of his accusing finger in their direction was as good as being handed a death sentence. The marked person would simply lie down resigned, mimicking a state of death, until it was a reality.

The power of suggestion.

You didn't have to live deep inside a rain forest to feel marked though, I knew through first hand experience. For months I had laid down each night, resigned to have it come and take me. Sometimes I stayed awake, so sure I would witness the very second he snatched me away from living. Other times I waited for him in my dreams.

But another visited instead. A voice more like, at least in the beginning.

Spoken words came first. Words that I couldn't recover in the morning, not that the formed letters mattered. It was the tone with which the words were uttered - soft and low, consoling- that gave me the greatest comfort.

Meloncholy melodies eventually followed. Songs from another time and place left dangling in the dead of night, as if they were waiting for my answer.

I responded the only way I could in my sleep; with less tears, until I stopped crying altogether. Dry pillows were the only evidence in the morning of the soft lullabies that guided me towards dreamless, tearless sleep.

Such a small victory, Edward had thought at the time. But it was something much bigger. He didn't just lure me back to sleeping, but living as well. His efforts made me stand up from the death bed I'd so gamely tucked myself into.

Last night I lured back his body from the wild. But his mind? His mind was still wandering alone in places I dared not ventured. I had to be the anchor, the homebase for him to come back to.

My body melded into his on the bed. His lone arm responded once more, winding itself around me firmly, while the rest of his body stayed still. Clasped in my hand were one of several sand bags we'd collected from our nightly beach jaunts. I pressed it into the palm of his free hand.

"It's the first bag we ever collected together. The night you were hellbent on saying good-bye to me on that beach."

No response.

For a moment I fumbled, not sure how to proceed. I wondered if parenting was similar to this: reassuring a loved one in desperate need of a lifeline, even though you couldn't reassure yourself so easily.

"I want you to hold it and remember how back then, it seemed impossible for us to continue. The gulf seemed too wide, remember?"

No answer, but I was getting used to it.

"You couldn't even stand my touch back then. Yet here we are in bed today, holding one another."

I gave him a careful peck on his hand.

"Kissing even. And you don't fall into a stupor now. And you don't have to run away from me when I get too close; even if right now, you think you should. Don't listen to that voice, Edward, the one that tells you that you don't belong here. Listen to mine, just like you did that first night on the beach, when I yelled out for you to come back to me. I pleading with you now: come back."

He didn't nod or shake or flinch away from me. He didn't hold me tighter either. But his palm tightened just so, causing his fingers to enclose around the sand firmly.

Power of suggestion.

**xxx**

The rest of the day he didn't respond at all, but it didn't stop me. Words were what lured me back, and it was my only hope for him now. I talked about anything that came to mind: my mother, my grandmother. Arizona. Hawaii. Rosarita Beach and San Onofre. Sunny places and loved ones he would never encounter in person, but meant the world to me.

When the words trailed off, the melodies began. But my voice wasn't beautiful like his. I could only rely on the beauty of lyrics to convey my feelings.

So I picked discerningly. A song that was written by two boys from Liverpool seemed fitting; about a young lover asking for reassurance that if he offers his love, "don't run and hide."

_Like he was right now._

A song that declared that love was more than "Just holding hands."

_As we both found out last night._

One minute, Edward was bringing flowers to my work, too shy to kiss me in front of the customers. I wanted him to have dinner with my dad. The next? He was saving my life, at a personal sacrifice that had yet to be tallied. And I was trying to ignore the scent that still lingered beneath his nails, and under his lips.

How violently the demands of love could shift in a matter of hours.

**xx**

Melodies soon gave way to jokes. Not the usual sort - monster and drumstick gags had no place in the comedic landscape now.

So I went with old stand-bys:

"A priest, a rabbi, and a nun walked into a bar..."

He didn't laugh at the punchline. I doubted he would have even if he weren't in a shock-filled coma. But he didn't grimace either. So I kept them coming, holding his hand against my warm cheek the whole time.

Jokes turned into confessions at some point. Small at first:

"I'd take you on wild goose chases all around my campus when you began to follow me, just for shits and giggles."

And then out of nowhere, it plopped out. Something I ignored not just for his sake, but mine as well.

"I can tell when your gears change, and you go from my Edward to someone else. It's the smallest shift in your eyes, but I can tell when you leave me."

His head turned away from mine. I kissed his shoulder softly.

"But maybe that's why I'm more hopeful then you right now. Because those gears have changed less and less over time. And even after everything that's happened, I saw it before you closed your eyes last night. You came back to me - you made it back from the nightmare."

His head made the smallest of nods before he responded, his eyes still closed: "But it's not a nightmare. And I can leave as quickly as I came."

Of course.

"Last night, I wasn't _your_ Edward, Bella."

He emphasized "your" with an air of mockery. I tried to tell him I knew that, but he cut me off.

"I was just outside your bedroom, the last place I should be in such a state. And you skipped out onto that patio and kissed me, completely unaware."

"I was aware, " I protested. "I just happened to bet that the right side would win out. "

Edward opened his crimson lined eyes. And I looked back, not bothering to hide behind a flippant smile or a wisecrack. I showed him the fear that lined my face, and the distress in my eyes. Lids that trembled, threatening to unleash tears.

"I could have hurt you last night, Bella. A part of me wanted to."

And with that first confession came another. And then another; and even more still, as the hours passed and day turned into the darkest of night. He relayed how his feelings for me took him to polar extremes. On one side, he wanted to do everything he could for me. But there was another side that manifested his feelings in darker ways. They fueled troubling fantasies that had plagued him. Fantasies that fixated on consuming me whole in various ways. Bloodlust and lust, it seemed, were two sides of the same coin for him.

"And they still filter through, no matter how hard I try to blot them out altogether," he added.

"You come as a package deal, Edward. I've always known that."

And if yesterday's gruesome display on the patio was his attempt to make me run away, tonight's confessions weren't so much a warning but a full disclosure.

He was letting me read his "fine print" finally.

**xxx**

The third day I slept in through the morning, awakening to an empty bed.

"I needed to hunt," Edward replied when he returned.

Flushing out, I answered back silently, thinking of Alice's words.

The fourth day?

Alice came. They spoke in hushed whispers on the patio. The hesitancy in his voice implied Alice was explaining her plan.

"This is for Bella. Everything I've done, everything I've told them, is for Bella, " Alice uttered in exasperation. The fact she was speaking at all made me wonder if I was meant to hear.

Them - the Cullens I imagined. She was laying the groundwork with the family already.

I waited for him to yell or argue back with her. Convince her that this plan left too much up to chance. But it never came.

Only two words ended their conversation from his end, resignation infiltrating his tone:

"For Bella."

**xxx**

That night they went out together. Even if they didn't elaborate, I knew why. The visitors had arrived in the area. Alice was anxious to get to them first, before anyone intervened.

"Keep your door locked, and call me the second anything seems out of sorts to you," Edward whispered as Alice stood in the doorway. He kissed my forehead like we would be parting for years.

The tension radiating off of him was jarring. If there was one thing about Edward, he was almost smug in his ability to keep me safe. As he often pointed out, those on the top of the food chain earned that confidence.

But a new desperation had set in. My decision to take the week off school and work made him too relieved. Emily's reappearance after a mid-week shack-up at her boyfriend's was too welcomed. And this kiss now....

I didn't like it.

They came home long after I had fallen asleep. And in the morning, the harsh set of Edward's eyebrows implied their seeking hadn't led to any finding.

"I thought the visitors had already arrived in these parts." My tone was casual as my finger smoothed out the worry lines on his forehead.

"They have, but they're much more....resourceful than we imagined. "

I asked him to elaborate.

"Their evasiveness as a group is impressive. They keep traveling along the borders of my family's land and the tribe's. Every time we almost catch up to them, they cross the border into tribal country and are out of reach. If they keep this up, we're going to have get the Quileutes involved."

Which would make things a hell of a lot more complicated.

**xxx**

On the fifth day, he asked me to read to him. He laid on his side of the bed, his arm opened to me when he asked.

Regrouping, as Alice put it.

Were we going to be all right? If we ignored what happened, never spoke of it again, could it settle into the background until it was forgotten?

Before I could utter a word, he searched my eyes before whispering: "You're my life now."

Five overused words that most boys would say to get into a girl's pants. But it took on a new meaning with Edward. Vows from humans often held the weight of a Chinese Fortune cookie saying. Vows from immortals, whether it was Alice vowing we were now family or Edward vowing I was his life now, seemed like a whole different animal. Binding and unbreakable and...._eternal_ were three words that came to mind.

"I think I was pretty much a full time job for you before to be honest."

That got him to smile.

**xxx**

On the sixth day, Edward kissed me. We were slowly getting back to our nightly protocol of talking and reading and talking some more. All that was missing was the physical closeness.

We'd laid side by side, staring at one another for who knew how long. His eyes were slowly draining in color; instead of layers of brilliant red, there were brick-red speckles of on top of a golden background now.

Edward kissed like only Edward could, with caution bleeding into passion as time wore on.

This kiss started off industrial strength from the get-go though. Not passionate so much as frantic either - I backed up reflexively.

"What?" His eyes blinked, surprised by the seeming rejection. I was never one to back away from any affection he offered up.

"You're scaring me. You're scaring me because something's scaring you."

He looked back at me as if I were a simpleton, and I couldn't blame him.

I cupped his cheek in my hand before continuing: "I know you're scared to be around me, especially so close like this. But now you practically beg me to go into lockdown when you leave me at night. Isn't that when I should be most safe, when you're away from me?"

I asked him once more.

"What's scaring you?"

He just shook his head slowly in response.

"I can't say yet. Not until I've figured it out myself. Please give me time, Bella."

So there was more there besides the obvious. My mind raced backwards in time, looking for any clue that might help me out.

One moment stood out, when I asked him to tag me come along on one of his hunting sprees. His jovial mood quickly turned serious:

_"You will never be party to what goes on in the woods, Bella. It's very dangerous."_

Dangerous for me, yes. But was there anything that was dangerous for Edward too?

"Beyond the obvious, what happened in the woods?"

"Not yet, Bella. Please give me time."

He collapsed backwards onto the pillow, his stare fixed on the ceiling now. I had struck a chord with my inquiry, but he needed time. I tried to make up the mental space between us with feather-light kisses on his ear.

"I'll be patient, as long as you tell me eventually. But I need to ask something in return from you."

He seemed so grateful for not pushing him, he agreed without a second thought.

I raised my head up so that we were looking at one another.

"Don't hide things from me, because you think I can't take it. "

He nodded silently, not quite grasping the weight of my words.

"I mean it. We're coming to the table from different places...."

Different worlds even...

"All I can do is love you the way I can. And all you can do is love me the way you can. And the way we love each other may look different because we're different. And we are going to mess up time and time again because of it. But all the messing up feels like gravy compared to not having you in my life at all. So please...never hide things from me because you think I can't take it. I can, and I will."

A slow grin spread across his face.

I'd used the "L" word for the first time. A sneaky approach of course; instead of a grand declaration of my love, I threw it in there like it was already a given.

Which it was.

"You said gravy." The smile he wore was sly, and we both knew which exact word brought out this response in him.

I nodded as he came barreling towards me with a hug that felt neverending in its back and forth sway.

His words mumbled into my neck, tickling me: "I love you, Bella. Not the way your books said you'd be loved, but I do love you."

**xxx**

The next evening, Edward went on his longest hunt yet. We were going to see his family tomorrow. His eyes were back to a light golden shade. His demeanor was almost back to normal too. Our mutual declarations from last night breathed new life into him. His focus and confidence was back in full force.

"That's exactly it," he said repeatedly throughout the day. "All I can do is love you the way I can."

I didn't quite understand his meaning. But if it got him out of bed easier, and continued to bring that hopeful smile to his face, I wasn't complaining.

Alice was on the phone with me now, going over last minute details. Our alibis had to line up effortlessly.

But that wasn't at the top of my concerns at the moment.

"So what should it be, Alice? Business casual? Sunday best? Haute Couture? Police riot gear?"

I wasn't exactly sure how to dress for the occasion. Because I still didn't understand what the occasion was. Alice kept smoothing things over, saying it was simply a family gathering to be introduced to Edward's girl. When I reminded her that the majority of the same said family wanted me dead, she dismissed it outright with a laugh.

"Bella, things have changed. All the family concerns were nothing more than a tempest in a teapot. Everyone is looking forward to the introductions tonight, and that's all that matters now."

Only a beautiful monster could think you're taking it too personally that others wanted you dead. When I pressed her to at least give up the family members who wanted me dead in the first place, she said it didn't matter at this point.

"If they truly wanted you dead, you wouldn't be on the phone talking to me right now."

"And like I told you Alice, if they wanted me dead, they'd have to get in line and take a number."

Silence was her only answer to my joke.

"Alice?"

"Yes, Bella," she said quietly. "I'm here. It's just....about that line that's forming behind you. And the fact that Edward's losing his mind trying to keep that line from getting any longer. Do you realize everything I've been doing has been for Edward?"

"Yes." Of course yes.

"And that everything I do for Edward, I do for you by extension? Because we are sisters now, are we not?"

This speech was starting to sound eerily similar to the talk she was giving Edward on the patio the other night.

"Yes, yes we are."

"What if I mentioned you could save yourself and Edward in one Check-mate move? Would you do it, Bella? Not just for yourself, but Edward too?"

My mind began to race, as her words became more clear in their meaning. I thought back to my little speech I gave Edward the other night. How we were so different. How the differences were what would mess us up time and time again; but I didn't mind, as long as I could keep him in my life.

What if there were no differences to trip us up any longer?

An image popped into my head of a more beautifully refined vision of myself; with high cheekbones and fuller lips, and golden eyes.

Bella, but better.

Other images followed. Edward alone on my patio. Edward alone at the movie theater. Edward wandering behind me like a stray dog, with no where to go. Edward driving to school, pretending to start his junior year in high school year after year after year.

Most of me wanted no part of this existence that Edward had been thrust into involuntarily. But I didn't want to leave him behind either. Behind to wander alone in the night, even more lonely than before he had met me.

All this week, I'd been trying to lure Edward out from the woods, and back to safety.

Alice was luring me back into the wild instead. Into the very woods Edward wanted me to have no part in.

"For Edward, would you at least think about what I'm offering, Bella?"

Her tone was smooth and lilting, despite the cruel offer she dangled in front of me.

I would,

"For Edward."

**xx**

**"I know you can straddle the atmosphere **

**A Tiny Storm In Your Teacup Girl**

**I know we may never get out of here,**

**A Tiny Storm in Your Teacup Girl"**

**---Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Storm in Your Teacup"**

**a/n: Okay, next update soon with Bella meeting the Cullen family.**

**eta a/n due to FAQ: Alice is indirectly asking Bella if she would consider being turned. Alice acts very covertly in this story, and by keeping things vague, she is giving herself and Bella an out.**


	17. I Will Follow You Into Dark

**Chapter 16: "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" p.1**

**a/n: Sorry for the late update. Life's crazy, but it's slowed down and I'm fired up to finish this sucker this summer.**

**a/n: The update I have is toooooo long so I'm breaking it up into 2 chapters. I will post the next chapter tomorrow. And no not tomorrow as in two months. lol Tomorrow. :)**

**a/n: Chapter Title taken from Death Cab For Cutie's "I Will Follow You Into the Dark". It's on my profile.**

**a/n: past chapter summary:****chapter 13**: Edward kills Bella's would-be attackers, and summons an unexpected guest who issues a warning: either kill Bella with mercy, or be willing to watch her die in a less merciful way.**Chapter 14**: Bella is in shock, realizing her seemingly normal desires have pushed him over the edge. Alice comes to her aid, breaking the news to her that Edward has done the unthinkable. She tells Bella he will return once more, but how long he will stay will be up to her. That she must do everything in her power to make him stay. She does just that, reminding him in the end that they've both tamed eachother, and are responisble for one another now, no matter what happens. Chapter 15: Bella nurses Edward back slowly to reality, and they both agree that all they can do now is love one another the way they can. Bella agrees to meet his family finally - for the sole purpose of giving Edward an alibi for the night of the murders. Alice asks Bella if she would ever entertain the thought of turning. Bella cautiously considers the possibilty.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

_Chapter 15:_

_All this week, I'd been trying to lure Edward out from the woods, and back to safety._

_Alice was luring me back into the wild instead. Into the very woods Edward wanted me to have no part in._

_"For Edward, would you at least think about what I'm offering, Bella?"_

_Her tone was smooth and lilting, despite the cruel offer she dangled in front of me._

_I would,_

_"For Edward."_

**_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_**

These damn giggles, they came out at the most inappropriate times. I was that lone person to giggle in a room when someone accidentally passed gas. I was the lone person to giggle during "The Notebook," while the rest of the theater weeped in unison.

And I was the lone person giggling yet again. Because who knew beautiful monsters would end up looking like they bought their couches at Pottery Barn?

My overactive imagination got the best of me as Edward drove us to his home in silence. This was no social call to get a peek at his parents - and let them peek back in return. This was my chance to make things right. Edward had saved me last week, using his instincts to locate me just in time. But those same instincts didn't shut off the minute they weren't needed anymore.

Just ask the three missing men just one town over.

Alice promised me. She promised that if we could just pull this off with his family, Edward would have a second chance.

"It's a slippery slope, Bella, the one Edward traveled _for you_ last week."

For you.

Alice emphasized those two words for dramatic flair, but it was unnecessary. Guilt weighed heavily upon me from the second I woke up until I fell asleep each night. And even then I didn't get a reprieve. My dreams often starred Edward doing things in dark forests that were impossible to imagine in the light of day.

Edward emerged from that forest eventually. He'd come back to me in body first - his mind followed days later. But there were these moments, where faraway glances ventured past me and back out to the woods beyond. Moments hinting that things had changed; not just between us, but deep within him as well.

Was he slipping slowly back to his old ways when he rebelled against all that he knew and loved? Was there any way to stop that descent, reverse it even?

Alice thought there was.

"Edward's teetering on an edge," she reminded. " I don't need to tell you that. But we can pull him back to where he belongs, here with you and me. And all that's required is a little charm on your part, Bella. Something you're in no short supply of."

She was flattering me so that I'd follow through with her plan, of course. But I lapped it up, encouraged it even. Repeated those encouraging words through my head again and again. Because this afternoon I needed to trick monsters more clever than myself.

"There have been questions," Alice mentioned. "Nothing direct, nothing accusatory. But Edward's disappearance, and _their_ disappearance at the same time, Bella. It's raised suspicions among the family."

We only referred to them by way of pronouns now, like "their" or "them." Although their names were seared into my consciousness from the first newspaper headline they grabbed:

Jim Lucas.

Matt Kelleher.

David Maine.

Men with rap sheets a mile long. Theft, minor drug charges. But assaults too - threats with a deadly weapon. I made sure to read every unsavory revelation from the newspaper about them to Edward, hoping it would ease the guilt that he harbored. He never responded.

Their disappearance pointed to foul play. Blood traces were found in the back alley where they were last seen venturing into.

What sort of foul play had law enforcement baffled though. It was as if they had evaporated into thin air. Charlie checked up on me several times a day now, reminding me to never venture out alone.

"You don't move three grown men with two hands, " Charlie reasoned. "We're talking a group roaming amongst us, Bella."

Charlie didn't realize two seventeen-year-old hands were very capable of such duties. And they were lying beside me in my bed, even as Charlie warned me of the danger.

The authorities may have been baffled, but the Cullens read the clues more accurately. Alice said they held one of their own kind responsible. Maybe even someone they knew. Yes, Alice had assured them it was one of the visitors. That Edward and her had had a fight. That he was finding solace in a human girl's bedroom, a reckless thing no doubt. But recklessness crushes and reckless murders were hardly one and the same.

Still, they had their doubts. Edward had been acting so odd lately, they reasoned. So fixated and secretive. Hungry too. Feeding constantly now, and yet never satisfied. Red flags like before, just prior to his rebellion years ago.

Alice declared that I was the key to removing familial suspicion from Edward. They needed to understand his odd behavior was due to a different sort of hunger they'd yet to witness from him.

"Carlisle sees a boy confusing thirst and loneliness for his feelings for you."

That may have been accurate in the beginning, actually.

"Emmett sees a boy who's conflating thirst with lust. A combination that would surely end badly for you - only after half of Forks had seen you two fraternizing together. The Police Chief's daughter makes you quite high profile to begin with, you know."

And therein lied the family "concern" with Edward's interest in me. I was a liability; not just to Edward, but to his family in terms of possible exposure. We'd gone public weeks ago.

"But if the family could see you, Bella. See you_ with_ him. See that this doesn't have to end in disaster, but in good fortune for Edward. Understand you aren't just a plaything, but someone he can't bear to leave at night anymore as his proper partner. They'll understand finally."

Understand what, I wondered outloud.

"That he's in love, Bella." She patted my head like she often did; as if she didn't realize that shoulder patting was for friends, while head patting was for small animals.

Maybe I qualified for both.

If I succeeded in convincing the family that his odd behavior and sudden disappearance was soley due to our growing relationship, Edward's alibi would stick. Carlisle would not probe further. No treaties would be broken with suspsecting tribes.

And Edward? He could start over again - with me in tow.

"Last time he slipped, family wasn't enough to make him return. But his family includes you now. You are our trump card, Bella."

I wasn't sure a familial trump card was what I aspired to be, but role titles were insignificant details. Edward needed me, and that was all that mattered.

The farther we drove away from Forks and into the rural landscape, the faster Edward drove. Images of Bruce Wayne's gothic manor flashed through my head as a possible destination. Or the Godfather's ironclad compound. I was half-expecting to have Edward drive me into the Batcave, with Don Carlisle's goons patting me down before allowing me entrance.

Instead, I was met with an oasis of modern architecture, nestled harmoniously against it's wild surroundings.

And the occupants who welcomed us at the door? Well...

Carlisle was more of a dead ringer for Tab Hunter from surf movies of decades past than Don Corleone. His golden matinee idol looks were meant to be immortalized on film - not hidden away in the forest on the outskirts of Forks. Ditto for Esme, who would have given Rita Hayworth an auburn bombshell run for her money back in the day.

They were dressed with subtle sophistication, in clothes that whispered old money and good sense. But who needed good sense when you looked like them?

And it was at this very moment, right before the formal introductions took place, that I giggled. Because Esme in a pastel pantsuit seemed like an utter crime against (in)humanity. Like forcing Audrey Hepburn into Birkenstocks. Or Cary Grant into Dockers.

They both stared at me in frozen silence until the giggles died out. I knew this tactic well as a veteran babysitter: ignore the child's outburst, then follow up good behavior with positive reinforcement.

Carlisle rewarded me with a head nod once I fell silent:

"We're so glad Edward has brought you home to meet us."

He extended his hand out toward mine. I shuddered reflexively. His hand was cold, yes. But he was also the one who did this to Edward. He was the one who changed the course of his whole existence. A part of me was chilled to the bone just by being in his presence.

Edward tightened his hold around my waist, silently reassuring me. The small gesture was not lost on the two figureheads: both sets of eyes rested on his comforting hand.

"Bella, I look forward to talking to you, but would you mind if I had a moment with Edward?"

I nodded, not wanting to open my mouth for fear of giggling again.

Edward turned me towards him, searching my eyes for any sign of discouragement. "You sure you'll be okay out here?"

He was being sweet, and protective; in short, he was being Edward. But now was not the time to treat me like a kitten in front of his family.

So I shewed him off with a smirk, then watched them walk away at a speed that I knew was too slow for them(and soley for my benefit).

"It's okay, Bella."

I spun a one-eighty around in Esme's direction, only to be met with her standing mere inches away me. She looked downward before speaking.

"Your hands," she murmured. "They're shaking."

My eyes dropped down to those pesky traitors as tiny tremors got the best of them.

I apologized, knowing full well it was silly to do so. The giggles came again, louder than I meant to. Which then made me blush. And the more I tried to stop myself from giggling, the more I felt my eyes tearing up.

All I could do was whisper out my words: "I'm so sorry, I don't know what's...happening."

Esme watched me carefully as she took my hands in hers. They were cold too, but no chilled-to-the-bone reactions came about this time.

"There's no need for apologies, Bella. This is how you should react when walking into a lion's den."

My eyes bolted up toward hers, trying to gauge her meaning. Her hands gripped back in reassurance.

"I heated the house for you. Put on some relaxing music. Used the fireplace for the first time to make this more easy for you. But your body is not so easily tricked, is it?"

My shaking hands answered for me.

"Your body is doing it's job right now, raising red flags in the hope that you'll listen. It's causing the tears, and the tremors. The laughter - the hair standing straight up on the back of your neck."

My hand patted the nape of my neck; sure enough, scared-straight strands were at attention. Esme watched on with a smile that could only be read as pitying.

I hated pity; after my mother's passing, I was offered that same smile time and again by others. It only made me look away and hold my head higher, distancing myself from others even more.

But this week, I'd found my breaking point. Another loved one had sacrificed too much in my name. And to have a set of hands reach out toward me, even if they were tinged with pity? It was all I could do to keep from collapsing.

"Is my body justified for feeling this way?" Esme didn't mean me harm, I could see that. But there were others in the family who may not be as welcoming. Others who entertained my passing just weeks earlier.

"Your body IS right for feeling this way, Bella. It's those feelings that you will need to rely on now. It's the only defense you'll have in your our world."

It wasn't the encouraging answer I expected to hear. She tried to calm me with a smile, but it was lined with worry.

"I want you to be comfortable here with us, Bella. We accept you; and hopefully after today, you will accept us. But I never want you to let your guard down. To tell you otherwise would be a cruel lie under these circumstances."

She understood. Esme saw it clearly - the danger surrounding our union. It wasn't even a choice, my body slumped against her small frame as another rush of tears came on. It had been so long since I'd cried this hard - maybe because the one person who I let in like this wasn't here anymore.

Esme's arms encircled me. "We'll figure this out. I don't know how to go about this either, but we'll all figure it out together, okay?"

I nodded like a child still clinging on to a fading hope.

Esme rocked me back and forth with quiet, calming words. When the tears dried up, she changed up the pace, offering me a seat in their large living room. We talked of small things now. That couch? Not from Pottery Barn. Apparently the Cullens weren't a mall-shopping sort of family. Pottery Barn didn't even register on their radar.

But shopping they most certainly did, as evidenced by the eclectically designed room I was in.

"We all have different tastes," Esme mentioned while watching my eyes sweep around the room. "I try to infuse all of our personalities throughout. It often makes for an interesting combination."

I asked her how that worked exactly, with a family unit of seven.

"Not very easily," she confessed, then pointed up at one wall. "But for instance. Alice is dynamic and bold. Red's her favorite color too."

I stood up doing a 360 circle, noticing how the continuous splashes of red color throughout the room gave the illusion of motion.

Very Alice.

I asked for more examples, trying to figure out what represented Edward before she told me.

"Rosalie is very strong, even unyielding on the outside. But on the inside, she's in perpetual bloom." She nodded in the direction of a glass vase, filled with a bouquet of wild flowers.

Huh. Edward had made her out to sound more like a perpetual bitch. I laughed at my own joke, which Esme mistook for another nervous reaction. Her hand rested on my shoulder, which only made me chuckle more.

"And Edward?"

"Oh, Edward, " she said with a tired laugh. The same kind of laugh my mother would use when relaying one of her many "Bella-scared-me-to-death" stories. She laughed after the fact, but in the middle of it? She found no humor in my careless antics.

"He's complex. Solid and dependable. Unbendable too, for better or worse." She pointed and tapped at the wooden floor below her. The wood was a golden brown, made rich by the multiple strands of color that made up it's whole.

"Brazilian Cherry Wood, compliments of Edward."

Esme wasn't all motherly affection and rainbows though. She got down to business when the opportunity arose. Alice had already explained to me that Edward was in a unique position in the family: "We have all left the family for periods of time. We did so as couples though, and usually for our mates. Edward has never left, never had a reason to. Except for that one time..."

Up until now, Edward only had family to exist for, as long as he abstained from what nature dictated him to do - and eat.

"Right now, Bella, his attentions are elsewhere. The family thinks there's only one possibility for this: he's slipping back to his old ways. You must show them a second possibility: that he's found a worthy partner he would put first, just like the rest of us would do for our own partners."

How odd, that both Alice's justifications and her family's suspicions were both correct. He'd slipped, but only because he'd loved me. He had found a partner; but as the Cullens suspected, I wasn't so worthy a partner. I was weak and careless - a liability in many ways. Was this how it would be between us, as long as we came from different worlds?

I already knew the answer to that question though.

Esme made sure her questioning didn't feel like an interrogation, but that's what it was.

How had Edward been doing, she inquired. Why had he stayed away from the whole family? How was he behaving - did I notice any changes while he stayed with me?

I tried to answer in short order that not-so-coincidentally went along with Alice's playbook. That he was fine enough, as was his behavior. That he wasn't punishing his family for Alice's actions.

"It's not that at all. We're just trying to figure out what to do with this, you know?"

I waited for her to ask what "this" was. She didn't though.

"We needed time alone, just the two of us, to figure it out on our own terms. Without Alice's input if you know what I mean."

Esme nodded, but concern was etched throughout her smooth, timeless face.

"Of course. And Edward coming back with you by his side implies you both came to some conclusion."

She didn't go farther with that line of reasoning, and I didn't offer it. The silence between us was heavy now, awkward even. Esme remedied that by standing up and motioning me to follow her: "I want to show you something in the next room. It can serve as an introduction of sorts to Carlisle."

As she pointed out some artwork on the wall, my mind began to wander. For a moment, I wondered about Alice's request to think about my possibilities with Edward. Would I fit into the landscape of this rag tag unit? Did they function more as a family than I imagined, and less like a mob syndicate? Esme made me think it so.

"You would add the element of water to this home," Esme whispered into my ear, causing me to startle at her sudden nearness. I could swear too, she took the slightest of whiffs against my neck as she did so. "You remind me of the ocean."

Her smile was encouraging, full of unspoken sentiment. She wanted me to add an element of my own to the home - to the family?

**xxxxxx**

**If heaven and hell decide, ****That they both are satisfied **

**Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs**

**If there's no one beside you **

**When your soul embarks Then I'll follow you into the dark**

-"I Will Follow You Into the Dark," Death Cab For Cutie

**Weird cut off point, but the second part will be up tomorrow...**


	18. I Will Follow You Into The Dark, p 2

**Chapter 17: "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" p. 2**

**a/n: Thanks for the reviews - here's a couple faqs that were mentioned mulitiple times. **

**a/n: faq: why is Bella so cautious about turning? **_Unlike canon, Bella does not yet trust the Cullens. Edward's struggles are more apparent in this story too as opossed to canon, so turning does not have the same "charm" it does for Bella in the series. In this story, the only motivation would be to not leave Edward behind, but it comes at a great price._

**_a/n: faq: Why is Bella shouldering so much blame for Edward's actions with the three men? _**_Bella realizes post-killings that in retrospect, she was not respecting his nature. A 17 year old boy in love is rash and protective and impulsive. Times that by 10 for a pretty monster._

_thanks for the reviews and input! The lyric title and ending quote are from "Follow You Into The Dark" by Deathcab For Cutie. I have a link on my profile._

_**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**_

**"In my world, I was already a man. I wasn't looking for love — no, I was far too eager to be a soldier for that; I thought of nothing but the idealized glory of the war that they were selling prospective draftees then..."-**

**-Edward Cullen, Eclipse, chapter 12**

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

_From last update:_

_As she pointed out some artwork on the wall, my mind began to wander. For a moment, I wondered about Alice's request to think about my possibilities with Edward. Would I fit into the landscape of this rag tag unit? Did they function more as a family than I imagined, and less like a mob syndicate? Esme made me think it so._

_"You would add the element of water to this home," Esme whispered into my ear, causing me to startle at her sudden nearness. I could swear too, she took the slightest of whiffs against my neck as she did so. "You remind me of the ocean."_

_Her smile was encouraging, full of unspoken sentiment. She wanted me to add an element of my own to the home - to the family?_

**_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_**

A new round of thoughts and questions poured into my mind, but they would have to wait. Because Esme's attention quickly turned past me and towards the hallway. Even past the mountain of a man who I'd just noticed standing in the doorway. His dark curls, massive arms, and curious smirk seemed to fill up the whole room now.

Emmett. The brother Edward was closest to.

They stared at one another before both their heads jerked back in the same direction down the hall again.

Edward and Carlisle. They were hearing something my ears couldn't.

"I'll be back in a moment, Bella." Esme left the room without so much an introduction between the giant and me. A giant whose smirk had now departed, leaving only a piercing gaze in its wake.

I tried out a smile on him, but it didn't change his somber expression. He simply crossed his arms and leaned against the wall in front of me.

"You wanna watch TV?" His head nodded to the adjoining room. "There's one in the corner over there. They're gonna be awhile."

He sized me up and down with a clinical eye now. Of all the things to worry about, somehow my vanity came through loudest. Did he wonder what his brother saw in me? The Cullen house and its occupants were a study in extremes. Extreme beauty. Extreme strength and grace and otherworldiness. And here I stood, utterly forgettable in turn. Brown eyes that blurred into brown hair that blurred into a brown top and shoes.

I felt like a walking clump of soil.

"Do you want to watch TV," he repeated, pronouncing his words more slowly this time. As if he assumed I were a simpleton.

I just shrugged my shoulders, not sure how to respond.

"The computer's in the corner over there too. You one of those social networking types? On Facebook or Twitter constantly like all the girls at school?"

School.

I'd forgotten that he went to school with Edward. I couldn't help it, I laughed imagining him trying to sit in one of those small ass desks at Forks High.

"Yeah, I have accounts for both. I just haven't been logging into them much lately."

It was his turn to laugh now, without the smallest trace of humor. "I bet. I doubt you could really twitter what you've been up to."

His stare was too intense, I needed some distance between us.

"Where's Alice?" I slowly made my way over to the computer to give me some space.

"We all heard you talking to Esme right now and thought you'd do best meeting us one at a time."

Of course. They had heard me crying like a mess earlier, possibly the worst sort of first impression I could make. I needed to make a better, less meek second impression, and fast.

"You want to see my Facebook account? I haven't used it in months, but I have pictures and stuff on it of my family if you'd like to see them."

He shrugged his shoulders gamely and walked over to me.

I spent the next five minutes cursing because I couldn't remember my password. He would have to settle for Twitter.

The Twitter page was plain, with the exception of my avatar pic of Emily and me.

"Who's that?"

"My roommate."

His eyes narrowed as he stared at her with concentration. I could almost hear the question he wanted to ask.

"Yeah, she's Quileute."

Emmett's mouth dropped open in disbelief. It was a detail I most likely should have kept to myself.

"She's tribal? And Edward's been playing house under the same roof as her this whole week?"

Definitely should have kept mum.

"Under the same roof as a tribe member," he repeated, his voice bouncing off the ceiling above us. No doubt right to where the other family members were listening in from the second floor.

"Can you not do that," I whispered, keeping my eyes on the computer monitor. If I looked at him, I'd probably wimp out from what I wanted to say.

"Do what?"

"Make it so obvious you're relaying everything I'm sharing to your family members. It's making me feel like a zoo animal that's being poked at."

He didn't answer back right away; instead, he nodded slightly before pointing at the screen again.

"Let's see what you have here."

Emmett started at the bottom of the page - a tweet from almost nine months back. A silly joke on a friend saying I'd found her future husband on a URL link. Emmett clicked it, chuckling at the photoshop of Daddy Warbucks head on the body of David Beckham.

"You did that all by yourself?" Emmett was too impressed that I could accomplish such small tasks. But he was also the one who wasn't sure I could comprehend simple sentences in normal time either.

"Uh yeah. It takes all of two minutes to whip out an image out like that." He nodded with a hint of apathy. I doubted photoshop techniques impressed a monster capable of supernatural feats.

Emmett kept up his manners like a trooper though. He looked at the next several tweets, asked about the friends they were directed to. He wondered what I'd told them now that so much my time was being taken up by a new friend.

It was my turn to shrug. "I haven't talked to most of them in awhile."

A slight shake of the head indicated his disapproval.

"It's not because of Edward either, if that's what you're getting at."

The reason became more clear as he read the last tweet that I'd left. A collective thank you to all who had offered condolences and an announcement I was taking a break from my page. Twittering about what I ate for dinner that night or cute boys I wanted to kiss didn't seem to have a place in my world after the accident.

Emmett asked what happened.

I answered in minimalist terms: "My mother saved me, and she's gone because of it."

It was like a lightbulb went off in Emmett's head, as if everything was crystal clear now with that bit of information. "So she saved you from the frying pan, only to watch you jump into the fire now. And Edward's only one step behind you."

His words and his glare, the muscles flexing in his neck. Not exactly the response you'd expect when sharing news that your mother had died.

I tried to ask him what he meant, but his cold finger pressed against my lips. He then pointed up towards the ceiling.

"They are listening," he mouthed. At least he was respecting my wish to have a semi-candid conversation. Emmett turned his attention back toward the computer screen.

"You never hiked around these parts have you, Bella? There is a trail right down the road here that takes you to some of the best outlooks. " He started in on a lingering story of no consequence - all the while typing on the keyboard:

_"You are in over your head, little girl. This isn't a game."_

His babbling continued at an easy pace as his two-indexed-fingered typed:

_" Alice assured us that this was meant to be between you two. But how could it? You show up crying and giggling, like a lost orphan who latched on to the first person who came along."_

He laughed humorlessly now, as he continued with his verbal story-telling and his written messages:

_"Of course Edward clung back. He finally found someone more lost than he was. But this isn't a fairy tale, and he's no knight. Far from it. This is going to end badly, and not just for you."_

Two things came to mind with those stark words: Emmett was a straight shooter. And wasn't Alice busy chirping in everyone's ear? She told them this was meant to be, as in she had a vision about Edward and I. It made me wonder if Alice truly had a gift or if she made her visions come true through meticulous planning and manipulation.

It was my turn to take over the keyboard as Emmett began a new rambling tale about his Friday exploits at school.

_"Of course I'm in over my head. I'm pretending to have afternoon tea with your family even though I know most of you wanted me dead just weeks earlier. Were you one of them?"_

He threw me a steely glance before nodding.

Didn't the Cullens put a new twist on the phrase "Family First."

I continued writing:

_"I know this isn't a game. I'm giggling because if I don't, I may piss myself instead."_

That got an eyebrow rise out of him.

_"My body isn't one hundred percent convinced, but my mind and heart are. I love your brother and he loves me. So disagree with our choices if you want, but don't try and tell me I'm some flightly little girl without a clue of what's going on around me."_

He stared into my eyes for a long pause, as if he was trying to call my bluff. I stared back, willing myself not to blink.

Finally, Emmett let out a long breath before confiscating the keyboard while launching into another monologue about the different wildlife indigneous to the region:

_"Your choices will affect ALL of us, Bella, you don't understand that yet. But for a second there, while you were typing with that defiant scowl on your face, I could see it."_

"See what," I mouthed.

_"I could see how he fell in love with you," _he wrote back.

We sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, small smiles breaking out as we found some common space between us. He cared about Edward; worried for him greatly, just like I did. He was simply coming it at another angle. Not as a lover, but a brother.

The silence was broken finally with a final upward finger point. We needed to begin a conversation again to keep the eavesdroppers from getting restless.

"So," Emmett asked as he clasped his hands, " how does this photoshopping stuff work?"

**xxxx**

"Emmett!"

Edward's voice was scolding as his brother presented him with his first successful photoshop image: a headshot of me with the body of a chicken on the lap of a stick figured entitled "Edward." Emmett broke out in laughter.

That disapproving glare then settled on me. I volleyed back my best doe-eyed expression. Doe eyes always beat out Edwardian glares - I knew that from experience.

"What? We got bored waiting for you. And you knew I'd pull out the pet jokes for an ice breaker. How do you think I broke the ice with you?"

Edward didn't answer. He just grabbed my hand and whisked me away from said brother, making Emmett laugh even harder.

Everything moved quickly from there. Formal introductions were doled out now that Edward was back by my side. Jasper kept his distance but nodded with a smile. Esme apologized for Rosalie not being able to come downstairs, so I looked up toward the ceiling Emmett style and sent her a shoutout. That garnered some laughs at the expense of Rosalie, but it seemed like a good trade-off. Alice's greeting was polite and impersonal, playing the part of a stranger with flawless precision.

Cunning, little travel-sized thing.

Introductions turned into a tour of their home. Even in their private space, they kept up appearances: the kitchen was stocked with with cookware that would never be touched. Bedrooms included beds. Bathrooms were stocked with toilet paper and toothpaste.

Even their bodies kept up appearances, mimicking human tics that were unnecessary for them. It fascinated me to watch them all in one room, blinking and stretching in regular intervals - sometimes in unison.

During a momentary lull, Alice took my hand for a quick moment. "The bathroom is this way," she said, while putting a note into my hand:

_"You've disarmed the most important two already." _

Esme and Emmett.

_"They will help in disarming their partners."_

Rosalie and Carlisle.

_"Jasper is on my side, which is your side as well. Rosalie will be dealt with later. Carlisle must be dealt with now though. Throw your charm more in his direction."_

Alice's points were helpful and correct. But god help me if there wasn't a pinch of Jackie Collins melodrama in her execution of those points.

**xxx**

His family gave us some private time when we reached his room. I didn't even realize they'd retreated until I looked over my shoulders and they were gone.

"They need to walk a little more slowly next time so I know they aren't around anymore." I could hear my voice carrying down the hall. "Oh god, they heard that, huh?"

Of course they did, Edward's smile answered.

"Now they'll feel compelled to overcorrect and end up moving like zombies."

His soft laughter hummed around me as I walked around his room: "They heard that too, Bella. And now they'll speed it up and get it just right for your finicky tastes."

Edward's was the barest of all the rooms. No bed, just a giant leather sofa that took up the middle space. He had a music corner to the right. Instruments and CDs and Vinyl records were organized in a meticulous manner. The only place where there was disorder was his desk on the opposite end.

A computer occupied the space. But so did books. And notebooks upon notebooks. Some seemed from this age. But others, as I fingered them gently, came from other eras. I flipped one open randomly, finding beautiful penmanship underneath its cover.

Edward's penmanship.

It was the first time I'd associated Edward with another place and time in a tangible way.

"You keep a record then, of...everything?"

"Not exactly."

"Then of what," I prodded, handing him the book back.

He took a second before answering: "You know how some keep dream journals?"

Yes.

"I fill these books with similar musings. But instead of dreams, they are memories that have long since blurred."

Memories from his life before he was turned.

"Every image or impression is like a puzzle for me. Sometimes I have enough pieces to form a proper memory. Sometimes I have to find more pieces to have them make sense. But once a moment is recovered, I can't let it go. I want to hold onto it, build upon it. It's a horrible thing to have something just out of your reach, yes?"

More so than he understood from my end.

He shrugged his shoulders, almost shy with his admission. "I haven't spent as much time on it lately, though. My mind's been preoccupied in other places."

So these books around us were a record of the boy who, if things had gone accordingly, I would have never met. Maps of the streets he'd once played and slept and lived on as a child. Genealogical records of family members he'd long forgotten. Photos of a beloved mother, newspaper clippings of the epidemic that wiped out everything that he had known and loved - including his memory.

They were all a testament to the boy who had been left behind so long ago, but not forgotten.

An errant thought ran through my head. If I chose to stay with Edward in a permanent way, would I be given time to make a testament now, so I would always be able to keep my memories preserved? Could I put together a sort of treasure chest, filled with things and memories and people I loved best, so I would never have to question who I had been once?

I shook my head, trying to get such thoughts out of my head. I came here, so ready to rumble with Daddy Cullen and the rest of the thugs I'd imagined who made up this family syndicate. But they'd disarmed me with an openess I'd hadn't counted on. And on the threat of sounding smug, I imagined I'd disarmed them a little in return. Were they guilty of little more than being happy as couples while Edward was still searching for his? Was that why they were disarmed by me - because they thought I could truly make Edward happy as his other half?

Edward didn't give me time to indulge in such thoughts though. He took my quiet demeanor in a different way.

"They like you, " he whispered while wrapping his arms around my waist. "They keep trying to push me out of their minds with banal thoughts. But I can see it in all their eyes. They like you."

**xxx**

"It's getting late," Edward announced. We'd sat talking casually with the family now for almost an hour. It was like playing twenty questions now with me front and center. The longer we talked, the more earnest his family members' inquires became:

How did we meet?

How did I even get Edward's attention?

What did I think of him initially?

I couldn't be completely honest. They couldn't know that our first true encounter was violent and depraved. But the more I concentrated on how we became unlikely friends soon afterward, the faster the questions came, with words falling out of their mouths in almost blurring speed.

Rose even got in on the action, asking a question from her throne upstairs, having Emmett voice it by proxy:

"Were you always attracted to stray dogs?"

Edward stiffened at the description. Interior perpetual bloom my ass.

"Attracted to stray dogs? No, but let Rosalie know that I always had a thing for the foreign exchange students in high school. And Edward's more exotic than any Leif from Netherlands times ten."

Emmett cracked up. And judging from his head bobbing back and forth between the ceiling and myself, I wasn't sure if he was laughing at my words - or Rosalie's reaction.

Edward jolted up from the couch.

"And on that disturbing note, we're going home now."

I couldn't help but smile, liking how those words danced off his tongue so casually. Neither could Esme for that matter.

I'd done it. I could see it in their eyes, and hear it in their questions. However cynical they might have been earlier, they believed in us. Edward wanting to stay with me all week was not out of the realm of possibility now.

Edward scooped me up in his arms once more, setting me to the side of him with a firm hold. I wasn't used to him being so demonstrative with his affections.

"Ready, Bella?"

Jasper shot me a parting head nod, Alice waved while trying to hide the smugness in her grin. Emmett told me to behave myself, and warned Edward that I was trouble - with a wink.

We were so close to pulling this off without a hitch.

But then Esme and Carlisle came up to me as a unit. Each took one of my hands, while Esme spoke for the both of them: "Remember what I said, Bella. You're **one of us**** now**, we'll figure this all out **together**."

Edward's grip on my waist tightened - which set off the first red flag.

"What did you just say," Edward asked, his voice calm and terrifying at once.

I looked at Esme, whose mouth dropped in alarm. But Edward wasn't speaking to her.

Jasper was who his eyes were fixed upon.

"What did you just say," Edward repeated. "Right now, in your head."

Alice nodded at me - as if she expected me to intervene when I had no clue what was even going on.

"What's wrong, Edward?" That's all I could come up with. I shrugged at Alice's scolding expression.

He didn't answer me; instead, I watched him stare intently at each family member, as if he were combing through every thought in their head. They all stared back in silence, the slightest hint of fear all tinging their eyes.

Were they afraid of him?

He stepped squarely in front of me, protective arms coming out to his side. All I could do was peek under his arm to see the exchange that came next.

"What did you just say in your mind, Jasper."

Jasper stared at Alice before answering. "I said she was ready."

"Ready for what?" The more quiet Edward's voice grew, the more alarming it became.

"Ready to join us." Jasper lifted his chin ever-so-slightly with his response, as if to challenge Edward's implied threat.

How quickly a Family Home Evening turned into a High Noon Stand-Off in the Cullen family.

He stared straight at Emmett now. "Was that the whole point of Carlisle taking me aside? So you could all fill her head with ideas without my interference?"

"Fill my head?" My voice broke the trance Edward was having over his family at the moment. "You don't think I can fill my own head with ideas or something?"

Edward didn't have time to answer though. His sibling intervened.

"Brother. Be reasonable - I've never tried to trick you. Not my style." Emmett took a step forward, extending a bridge-building arm towards us. Edward only shielded me more decisively, freezing Emmett in his tracks.

"Oh, I am being reasonable, Emmett. The last time one of us brought someone home to meet the family, he spent the next several days sceaming in pain. He even begged me to put him out of his misery, the pain was that excruciating."

Emmett. He was speaking of Emmett's turning.

Edward's head motioned upwards towards the ceiling. "Remember that, Rosalie? When you brought your new toy home and asked Carlisle to recharge the batteries for you?"

This was spinning out of control quickly. I bowed my head underneath Edward's arm, looking to Alice for some guidance. She just shook her head helplessly.

Carlisle took his chances next. He put his arms up slowly, like a criminal surrendering to authorities.

"Edward, we would never go behind your back on this-"

"You would for the good of the family, yes you would." Edward's voice was all self-righteous indignation and anger. I'd never seen him like this before. By the looks on everyone's faces, they hadn't seen him acting like this in a long time either.

"No, I wouldn't, Edward. And you KNOW that. It's just ..."He paused for a slight moment, giving me a consoling look. "...we weren't sure what you meant by bringing her home to us. If you two mean to be together. And by all signs, that seems very much the case."

Edward swung an arm around me quickly. Before I knew it, I was being cradled into the side of his body while he held me tightly at the waist. "Yes, that's the case," he answered back. "She's my partner." He looked upwards towards the ceiling. "She will be given the same protection under our family like any other member. BUT she'll never become one of us. Bella will stay as she is, no matter what."

Carlisle took one step closer.

"Edward do you want her by your side, just as she is now?"

Edward grasped me tighter, nodding so hard, his hair fell into his face like a petulant child.

"For her to stay by your side, we need to protect her. Properly. You know this. You don't have her enter our world vulnerable and unprotected like she is now. Her body couldn't keep up. To tell you otherwise would be a cruel lie under these circumstances."

Deja Vu.

Carlisle had used the exact words Esme had used on me just hours earlier about whether I was safe or not: "_To tell you otherwise would be a cruel lie under these circumstances_."

A repeated phrase that drummed home the fact that as a mere mortal, I was in grave danger. Had they been given a playbook? Just as Alice had given me one, to persuade me as much as I was to persuade them? Was Alice playing both sides, her loyalties equally distributed for the most desired outcome for us all - my turning?

"Well, I'll be damned."

The words came out before I even realized it. But Alice's proactive-and-by-all-means-well-meaning ruthlessness was something to admire for the moment.

And then I realized my words made for a fairly inappropriate pun really, given the current topic of changing my very nature.

"Well I'll be damned," I repeated a little louder, and with better ironically comedic timing.

I gauged Alice's reaction - her face was awashed in confusion. Or was that what she wanted me to see? Carlisle cut into silence first.

"We would never go behind your back on this matter Edward. We would never treat Bella in such a manner either, and you know that. But if she were open to the possibility, we would deal with the situation as we have always done before in our family."

His words made Edward chuckle: "We'll deal with it the way we always have? With a single person vote? Where you can all veto my wish by majority? Where you ask Bella to vote for something she has no clue what she's even voting for? Over my dead body."

He tapped his finger against the side of his head, a silent threat that he'd be listening carefully from now on: "Over all our dead bodies."

Edward picked me up like a rag doll before I could utter a word. And by the time I'd shouted for him to release me, we were already engulfed by the woods behind his house.

" Edward, put me down!"

The anger in my voice halted him instantly, his hands loosening around my waist. I swung and kicked myself down until I was touching the ground below.

"I spent the last two hours trying to convince them what we had was something significant, and equal - and good. And you just undermined it by throwing me around like a stuffed animal who can't think for herself!"

Edward let out a frustrated groan, hitting the tree beside him. Of course it was enough to almost tip it over.

"You were perfect, nothing's changed that. It's me. It's about them and me..."

I waited for him to calm down before he could elaborate.

"I had to deceive them about last week. There was no other choice, if I want to keep you safe by my side. But I also needed to ask them for their protection. Safety in numbers, Bella. There's safety in numbers."

Edward retold the events of the last hours. That Carlisle took him aside to talk of the elusive visitors. It was a pressing matter, given the tribe's insistence that the Cullens "persuade" them to leave just as quickly as they came. Edward listened and offered advice, made a good show of his wits and emotional state to lessen Carlisle's suspicions.

Mission one accomplished. But he had another mission that was just as important to him as the first.

"I wanted to introduce him formally to you. As my partner. As a new member of our family."

His words were quiet now, almost shy. Alice had spoken about the reverence of relationships before. That "my" kind used words like "friend" and "sister" lightly, while her kind? Used those designations with weighted reverence.

_"To speak them outloud Bella is to bind oneself to the other. To say you are my sister is not a phrase, but a vow."_

A vow that was unconditional in it's obligation to the other. Those obligations only magnified when it came to a mate.

My silence didn't seem to sit well with Edward. He began speaking again before I could:

"You don't have to offer anything back to me. Or to my family members. But if I declare you my partner, you become family to all of them too. You are under the protection of everyone of them from here on out. Safety in numbers, Bella."

His words and the changing tones that accompanied them made me forget, just for a moment, why I was even mad at him. Only he could dangle me around like King Kong, then sound like a military strategist and a shy school boy asking me to prom within the space of one minute.

"Safety in numbers is good, Edward. And I like the sound of being your partner. Like partner in crime. Bonnie and Clyde and all that stuff. It suits us."

Relief overtook his face with my reassurances that he wasn't being presumptious. It didn't stay calm for long though.

"But it isn't safe if the very people I appeal to aren't willing to protect you properly. If they undermine everything I'm trying to do and fill your head with ideas that are just as dangerous as the enemy's."

He was speaking of me being turned, of course. Of Esme and Emmett's subtle hints of what was to happen if I turned - or if I didn't. His face hardened in an instant. "What did they say to you? Try and remember everything, even the smallest details. Because if they-"

"Stop," I interrupted. "Nothing was said that could have influenced me either way. And it's not like I haven't imagined...changing... as a possibility before tonight either."

My words stopped him in his tracks. The rage drained from him in an instant, and all that was left before me was a desperate boy on his knees before me, pleading.

"Bella, don't even speak like that. Please. That can never be an option for you."

His hands carressed my skin, then rested on my beating heart, a silent appeal to remember all that I would lose with such an option.

"Sometimes love doesn't give you an option, Edward. Just like it didn't give you options last week."

He looked up towards my face. So beautiful and agonized. He didn't think he deserves this - us.

"You're worth everything I'm considering, Edward."

His arms wrapped around my hips; a little too tightly, while his face nuzzled into my thighs. As if he thought he could fuse us together by sheer will. I fell to my knees so we could be face to face.

"I mean it. I love you, and there's nothing you can do about it. I will never leave you behind now."

He answered back within a beat: "Sometimes, love doesn't give you an option."

I asked him what he meant. He wouldn't continue until he was sitting on the ground, wrapping me up on his lap.

"What if you thought the only option to not leave me behind was to become like me."

I nodded slowly, not sure where he was going with this.

"And you went through the most excruciating pain possible for hours, and days. Then you came out of those ashes brittle and hard and thirsty. And the same girl who wouldn't harm a fly suddenly wanted to feed off anyone who crossed her path. Her own father even if he got in her way."

I quieted him with a finger to his lips. "You would keep me out of everyone's path. You could quarantine me until the thirst lessened."

My words drifted off as Edward's head shook side to side.

"What if you did all of this for me, because you didn't want to leave me behind. And you came out the other end to find out I was the one who left you? What if parts of me have already left, and you just couldn't see it? What if more parts of me continue to leave, until all that is left is the monster you saw that first night in the warehouse? Who would feed off anyone who crossed his path - even you if you got in my way?"

Alice had spoken of this. That the last time Edward had fallen, his family wasn't strong enough to bring him back from his darkest self. He spent the next decade indulging those desires without so much as a letter of his whereabouts to those who loved him most.

"I know things have changed since...last week. And I know your family wasn't enough to make you return last time. But I am. Our love is."

His words flowed forth at rapid speed now. He told me his love forbade any such change for me. He told me of the ultimate irony, of finding love with me after all this time. Of having me turn, so that we could be together, only to have him fall once more - even harder than the last time.

"Do you see where that would leave you? Alone, cut off from all that you loved and cherished, including your family and friends. You would take MY place in the family. Instead of me wandering alone at night, it would be you who would wander. Never - it can never be an option for you."

I tried to reassure him that he was only looking at the worst case scenario, even though his words chilled me to the bone.

"We'll wait then. Wait until you're sure that you won't fall anywhere. Then we can decide."

He leaned backwards as he fished out something inside his pant pocket, then put it in my hand.

It was a small piece of cloth. Plaid, with specks of burgundy against orange and brown lines.

"What is it?"

"Not all my momentos can be put in notebooks and photo albums."

He stood us both upright now while putting a some distance between us. I looked at the piece of cloth again, and at the burgundy in particular. That wasn't a wine stain.

"I have these blacked-out moments now, where I can't account for myself for minutes at a time. Dreams, or nightmares take over my whole consciousness."

"You've always had those, Edward."

"Not these dreams. And sometimes a certain scent can take me places I shouldn't go. Places I haven't gone in my mind for many years."

He took the piece of material now, placing it between his fingers.

"If I rub against the material, just like this, it diffuses a scent. Strong enough to take me back, make me relive it all over." He stared me square in the eye now. "And I want to relive it. Several times a day."

"Who does this belong to," I whispered.

He wouldn't answer, but he didn't have to. It was from one of the men last week. I carefully took it from him, putting it in my pocket.

"You just need time, Edward. Time to put some distance between you and what happened."

He laughed at my words.

"What if someone won't give us the time we need to figure this out?"

His words frightened me, even if I didn't understand their meaning.

"Enough with the questions and riddles, Edward. Speak plainly!"

He hugged me once more. A good, hearty hug - the type my father would give me after some tough-love pep talk.

"Once you told me Bella, that all I could do was love you the only way I can."

I nodded in remembrance.

"Something happened in the woods that night."

My hand began to cycle, begging him to get to the point.

"Something that made me see everything clearly for once."

I asked him to clarify.

"I can't love you the way you deserve. I can't take you home to meet your father. I can't walk you down an aisle, or grow old with you. But I can love you the only way I can, the way I was built to. I'm changing Bella, inside. I can feel it. It's already happening, whether we want it to or not."

"You weren't built for any fate, your family and you are testaments to that, Edward! Don't be so flippant, that's my job in this relationship."

He just smiled back at me sadly. "I'm not being flippant at all. If I had the time to feel sorry for myself right now, I'd take full advantage of it. But I don't have time. YOU don't have time. All I can do is be thankful that I found you at all, and that I can be useful back in some way to you. And if that means falling as hard and fast as I am, so I can take on the devil ITself, so be it."

My mind raced alongside his words. He spoke of someone not giving us time. Of needing to sacrifice himself for me as the only useful loving gesture he had in him; of falling without much of a fight into his darker side. A sort of preparation if you will, to fight the Devil himself...

The Devil ITself...

"Edward, what did you see in the woods that night? Who did you see?"

He didn't answer right away, just brought my face closer to his to plant kisses all over it.

"Who did you see," I managed, even though my own lips were returning reckless kisses of their own.

"I saw IT."

IT had been so quiet lately, I thought It had left. My guess had been Edward had scared It off - he could be a mean bastard when he wanted to. And most importantly, It had no power over Edward, an immortal of sorts.

But It had never gone anywhere. He simply changed strategies - or targets. I'd grown stronger with Edward, felt infallible lately. And It let me feel that way, all the while working on my sweet Edward. Edward, the boy who never felt worthy enough for us. Edward, who needed little encouragement in thinking the only way to love me properly was to obliterate himself in the process.

A memory of us talking about his earlier life sprouted up just then. Before his mother's death, before the epidemic even, he had experienced his first love.

"She wasn't as pretty as you, of course," he'd joked. It wasn't even a she in the traditional sense - Lady Liberty didn't count as a real, live broad. But Edward conveyed how all the boys his age had dreamt of joining the war effort, and being a part of the glory of battle. The romanticism of his age of sacrificing all that you had for an ideal? Was the ultimate aphrodisiac for young men who had yet experienced their first kiss.

All It needed was an opening to plant seeds of such romantic grandeur and bullshit. Edward gave him just that with the three men in the woods.

It all made so much sense now. Why he didn't want me to change - couldn't let me change when my only reason for doing so was to be with him. Why a part of him was holding onto to what happened last week with so much gravity. Edward was going to save me, even if it meant drawing from the darkest parts within him to fight off the devil Itself - and all that It threw at me.

"You're leaving me behind, then." My tears were forming now. Edward hated to see me cry.

"No, Bella. I'm not leaving you behind. I'm following you into places you can't go alone. And when I can't follow anymore, my family will. You will never be left alone. I promise you that."

Two ships passing in the night, not eternal lovers after all. How quickly my options changed from one minute to the next with Edward.

"Put me on your back, Edward. Like old times. Put me on your back and run as fast as you can. And when you tire of it, take us back home. I'll read to you and then you'll hold me 'til I fall asleep."

He didn't argue with me. Within seconds we were on the move again - just like old times.

"Two ships passing in the night," I whispered into his ear. His breath caught, as he pulled my legs even closer into his body.

Time seperated us by a century. Nature seperated us by predatory lines. And yet we fought against both long enough to recognize one another, finding shelter and even love in the process.

My kind could make vows too, I reckoned. We could be reverent with our ties too.

And in that stretch of silence as Edward hauled me up yet another sharp cliffside, I made a pledge myself.

If we could outsmart time and nature, this bastard It was going down for the count too.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

**If heaven and hell decide, ****That they both are satisfied**

**Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs**

**If there's no one beside you**

**When your soul embarks Then I'll follow you into the dark**

_-"I Will Follow You Into the Dark," Death Cab For Cutie_

**eta:1) Someone asked what was implied by this line:**

**"No, Bella. I'm not leaving you behind. I'm following you into places you can't go alone. And when I can't follow anymore, my family will. " **Edward is talking about the fact that Death is after Bella and it's leading her places that she shouldn't go alone. That Edward is following after her, and watching over her. But the changes in him mentally(because of killing again) may end up making him incapable of being there for her always. And that's why he wanted her to meet the family, and for them to accept her. Because they will take over for him if he is no longer able to - safety in numbers and all that. Death a couple chapters back presented him a catch - 22 situation. Kill Bella mercifully or Death will kill her mercilessly. Death also implied that the biggest threat to Bella was Edward himself. Edward's thinking is that if he has to be the killing machine he has to be to fight Death and all it throws at Bella, so be it. But he is also aware that there will be a price to pay for going there with his nature - he is going to fall eventually, just like he did before.

**2)Someone asked why they just don't turn her:** In the last part of the chapter, Edward explains what could happen if they do this approach. She sacrifices so much by turning, with the sole purpose of being with Edward. Only to come out the other end and realize that Edward is gone. After killing the three men, Edward feels changes coming on, and does not know if those changes are irreversible. There is a very good chance he will go back to his old ways of being a lone predator. Turning Bella means to cut her off of everything and one she knows as a human. Without Edward on the other side to be with her, there's no point.


	19. Have you Ever Looked Fear In the Face?

**Chapter 18:"Have You Ever Looked Fear In The Face and Said I Just Don't Care?**"

**a/n**: **I've begun writing for this story again and have finished what comes to just shy of two chapters. I'm including about 1/3 of that material in this short-ish update, with the intention of updating again by this weekend. I am hoping to finish this story with smaller installments for each chapter. I have a tendency of updating with too large a chapters, then I need to take months off to recuperate. Lol If you are still reading this, thanks. If it's been too long, I understand that too! Been there done that, myself. Xoxo**

**a/n: Below in italiacs is a summary for the last several chapters if you would like one. If not, move past this long ass piece until you get to the quote.**

**memory joggle from previous two chapters:**: _Bella goes to the Cullen's house to enact Alice's plan to cover Edward's killing. Bella is Edward's alibi for why he's been missing for the last week. Once there, Bella is overwhelmed by the reality of what the Cullens are. She breaks down in front of Esme, who offers comfort but also a warning - that her body's tense reaction to their presence is a gift that she should never attempt to stifle. Those reactions will be needed to keep her alert if she is to exist among their kind. Emmett gets a moment with Bella to warn her as well - that she is in over her head and playing with fire. Bella responds willfully yet clear headedly, gaining Emmett's respect. She finally sees Edward's bedroom. It's full of journals and clippings, testaments to his previous life a century earlier. Bella wonders for a moment of Alice's offer - to turn Bella which in turn would solve all the problems before her. She wonders for a moment if she will be able to make some memory journals of her own if she chooses to turn - that way her memories can stay intact. The visit seems like a success - as they bid everyone farewell, it's clear that the Cullens have come to understand Edward's attachment to this human girl. But then a mere mental slip of a thought from Jasper catches Edward's attention - Jasper silently muses that Bella is ready to be turned. Edward's temperment changes on a dime, thinking the worst of his family - assuming that they were working together to influence Bella to become one of them. Edward accuses them of trickery - Carlisle promises that is not the case. He also adds however that if Edward truly wants Bella for a mate, she would need to become one of them - it would dangerous to not do so otherwise. Edward leaves the home with Bella in his arms, holding her possessively, with a note of warning to his family - Bella will not be turned under any circumstances, and vows so over all their dead bodies. He bolts into the woods with Bella, who insists for him to put her down. She chastises him for treating her like a child in front of his family, after she tried so hard to convince them she was anything but. She also tells him that no one can make her mind up for her - and if she chooses to turn it would be her decision. Edward tells her she can't make a decision without being better informed of what the circumstances. After being prodded, he finally explains his meaning - he confesses what had happened in the woods the night of the murders. Not only did he take lives, but he was visited by Death himself(last part of chapter 17_):

_"I saw IT."_

_IT had been so quiet lately, I thought It had left. My guess had been Edward had scared It off - he could be a mean bastard when he wanted to. And most importantly, It had no power over Edward, an immortal of sorts._

_But It had never gone anywhere. He simply changed strategies - or targets. I'd grown stronger with Edward, felt infallible lately. And It let me feel that way, all the while working on my sweet Edward. Edward, the boy who never felt worthy enough for us. Edward, who needed little encouragement in thinking the only way to love me properly was to obliterate himself in the process._

_A memory of us talking about his earlier life sprouted up just then. Before his mother's death, before the epidemic even, he had experienced his first love._

_"She wasn't as pretty as you, of course," he'd joked. It wasn't even a she in the traditional sense - Lady Liberty didn't count as a real, live broad. But Edward conveyed how all the boys his age had dreamt of joining the war effort, and being a part of the glory of battle. The romanticism of his age of sacrificing all that you had for an ideal? Was the ultimate aphrodisiac for young men who had yet experienced their first kiss._

_All It needed was an opening to plant seeds of such romantic grandeur and bullshit. Edward gave him just that with the three men in the woods._

_It all made so much sense now. Why he didn't want me to change - couldn't let me change when my only reason for doing so was to be with him. Why a part of him was holding onto to what happened last week with so much gravity. Edward was going to save me, even if it meant drawing from the darkest parts within him to fight off the devil Itself - and all that It threw at me._

_"You're leaving me behind, then." My tears were forming now. Edward hated to see me cry._

_"No, Bella. I'm not leaving you behind. I'm following you into places you can't go alone. And when I can't follow anymore, my family will. You will never be left alone. I promise you that."_

_Two ships passing in the night, not eternal lovers after all. How quickly my options changed from one minute to the next with Edward._

_"Put me on your back, Edward. Like old times. Put me on your back and run as fast as you can. And when you tire of it, take us back home. I'll read to you and then you'll hold me 'til I fall asleep."_

_He didn't argue with me. Within seconds we were on the move again - just like old times._

_"Two ships passing in the night," I whispered into his ear. His breath caught, as he pulled my legs even closer into his body._

_Time seperated us by a century. Nature seperated us by predatory lines. And yet we fought against both long enough to recognize one another, finding shelter and even love in the process._

_My kind could make vows too, I reckoned. We could be reverent with our ties too._

_And in that stretch of silence as Edward hauled me up yet another sharp cliffside, I made a pledge myself._

_If we could outsmart time and nature, this bastard It was going down for the count too_.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

**_quote: "Distract me, please. "-__Edward Cullen, Twilight, Chapter 8, p.163_**

-"Faster."

-"Again."

-"You're holding back - FASTER!"

These were the words that came from Bella, just minutes after telling her everything was about to crumble all around us.

Tearless words, full of enthusiasm and abandon. As if what I'd revealed was a free trip to Disneyland. I should have known better than to wonder outloud how she could be so "You-just-won-the-Super-Bowl, what-are-you-going-to-do-now?" at a time like this. She didn't miss a beat in her reply:

"You're Disneyland and a Tiger Beat centerfold all wrapped into one, Edward. Why wouldn't I feel like I'd won the Super Bowl?"

She wanted me to run with her - just like before. Bella wanted me to hike up cliffs and bolt down them quickly. And in between all her dictatorial commands, she'd kiss my cheek and laugh in my ear. Squeal and heel me hard on the legs to move along me faster.

If the world was watching her just now, they'd lock her up in a padded cell. She was completely out of touch with reality, they would say. In denial, delusionary, or worse: a girl with a death wish.

They were wrong. They were unable to see her clearly like I could.

I saw a girl who'd seen mortal danger up close and personal before. She knew what it looked like, how it shoved it's way to the stage and demanded one's attention. And here she stood, looking it square in the eye - even calling its bluff.

Bella wasn't always like this. There was a time, she assured me, when she was the reasonable half of a dynamic mother and daughter duo. The ever-capricious Renee was full of ideas and notions bigger than her and life itself.

"I, on the other hand," added a fondly reminiscent Bella one night," was like her Jiminy Cricket. Not for moral compassing, but for reality checks."

Not just reality checks either.

Bella learned how to balance a family checkbook before she hit the teen years. Learned how to successfully file for unemployment with her mother by fourteen. Yet high school came and went, and all those Jiminy Cricketing hours took time away from things girls her age were learning. How to be interested in the "Rochesters of the world" for instance; so that when Heathcliffs began tapping on her window late at night, she would have known better than to open up her world to them.

"You and me, we're the same in some ways, " Bella once said. "Both on the cusp of bigger things when something came in between us and the future."

No, this girl wasn't out of touch with reality. She wasn't sick. Bella was simply a girl who'd cheated death and lived to tell the tale. A tale I'd survived for a century, but hadn't truly championed until she came along.

She'd earned the right to be irreverent, giving fate the middle finger and chasing it down…all the while on the back of a willing monster she'd picked up along the way. We cheated death, continued to exist, and now even found love amongst the ruins.

I wondered if I indulged her too much. That I should tell her this wasn't one of her luridly romantic tales that end with a fairy godmother to save the day, and a prince to kiss you back to life.

No fairy godmothers. No magic spells. No awakening from death's grasp with true love's first kiss.

But it would have been a lie. Because Bella awakened me from my dark dreams and realities every day now. And she kept waking me up from those impulses that had been demanding more and more of my attention lately.

I stopped at yet another ledge, letting her look down the deadman's drop before continuing. She took it in with a smile.

"If I had more of a penchant for writing and drawing, I'd make a comic book about you." The words were light, but my tone was serious.

Her eyebrows arched in skepticism.

"Really? What would a comic book want with me? Unless clumsiness could be used for good in some fashion, like tripping bank robbers accidentally as they ran from the scene of a crime..."

I scoffed.

"No, silly girl. You'd be a superhero of the highest order, a female version of James Bond, smooth and clever and deadly, with a touch of Spiderman laddled in."

She frowned for a moment. Perhaps that wasn't the highest compliment for teenaged girl ears. Then a slow smile corrected it.

"That would make you my Bond Girl, which is perfect since you're prettier than me times ten. And I would rename you something crude and female chauvinistic. What's the male equivalent of Pussy Galore?"

I told her to quit while she was ahead, but it was too late.

She began to run wild with the possibilities, as I ran us wild down the cliffside:

"OctoRedwood!"

"Johnson Galore!"

So much sailor mouth from the face of an angel.

"My name's not important," I huffed out while maneuvering us through the thick woods. Woods that were quiet, but not serene. No, this land had been covered by the Visitors now, and was no longer the innocent playground it had once been. "You're the star of this adventure."

"What makes me special enough for a starring role," she asked aloud. " I don't have a radioactive spider or alien homeland in my backstory."

I couldn't help but laugh - sometimes her obliviousness was frustrating. Right now, it reminded me why I fell for her in the first place.

"Silly Bella, you're magic all on your own. No radioactivity required."

When her hands began to chill, I took her home. "Up through the balcony," she directed. No front doors tonight.

I waited until she had her feet back on solid ground before I started in.

"Bella...we need to talk-"

She cut me off quickly, reminding me not to break protocol. Strict adherence to our nightly rituals was of the utmost of importance to Bella now.

After a quick pj change, she made me read to her. She read to me next about the Little Prince and his rose - emphasizing the part about being responsible for all that we tamed. How often she'd been reading that passage back to me in the last week.

And then, and only then, did she allow me to speak.

"On one condition," she added, jumping underneath her covers and inviting me to join her with an outreached hand. "Closer. Come closer to me."

My head rested on her chest as I let the words out casually, as if I were asking her what she had for her lunch today.

"Do you remember once? When the young boy and girl from the tribe ran into your room? How badly it all could have turned about with them and me?"

Her eyebrows arched in sarcasm. "Uh...yeah, not something you forget easily."

Of course. Having (im) mortal enemies meet in your bedroom in the form of monsters was something that would stay with anyone.

"I threatened them, the boy first-"

"Seth."

"Yes, Seth. Then the girl - "

"Leah."

"Leah, of course. And later on that night, you asked me to never do that again. You never wanted others to be sacrificed for your own welfare. Do you remember?"

She nodded slowly, as if she was just recollecting our exchange: "Yes."

I waited a couple moments for her to soak in all that those frightful memories offered.

"If you become like me, Bella, your whole survival will depend upon that principle. And before you even realize what you're doing at some point, you'll bleed out someone because they smelled just right . It will be as impersonal as that."

She shuddered, but tried to cover it with an arm-stretching yawn.

"And once you're done, you'll realize that the carcass in front of you may be a mother, or a father. Or a daughter or son. Someone who was loved, and will be missed. Just as you miss your mother, just as I miss mine."

Only silence came from her end - a good sign. No flippant comeback meant I struck a nerve.

"The only thing that saved you from me that first night, Bella, was that you wouldn't let me forget that you had people who loved you. And it took me a century of discipline to even be able to stop long enough to hear you."

Bella stared at me for a long time, finally nodding in understanding. This was the only way to get to her: small nudges. Demands would only backfire, just as it did earlier tonight.

"Just remember that, okay," I whispered, before kissing her lips. "All the love you hold inside you won't be a match for the instincts you'll inherit."

I said that last sentence with conviction - even as I prayed silently that I was wrong. Because my only chance for surviving what was stirring within me was my love for Bella, and her love for me. I nuzzled in between her breasts with a sigh, concentrating on the softness and warmth. Not the strong, fragrant scent that rolled off her pores, and flared up my nostrils.

_Just remember_.

**Xxxxxxxxxx**

_"It's Only half-past the point of oblivion_

_The hourglass on the table, the walk before the run_

_The breath before the kiss and the fear before the flames_

_Have you ever felt this way?"_

_-"Glitter In the Air"_

**xxxxxxxxxxxx**

**a/n: Thanks to all of you who have written encouraging words to me throughout my absence, I really appreciated it. xoxo**


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